Of all the people in Microsoft we’d like to hear more from, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky is by far the quietest and most secretive.  That was until a few days ago when he suddenly appeared on Twitter, or did he?  The account wasn’t the man himself, being clear that “Oh, I’m not ‘the’ Steven Sinofsky by the way. He’s got a little project to focus on for now.”

Microsoft acted swiftly and uncharacteristically politely by tweeting the individual behind the account saying “@StevenSinofsky please see guidelines on parody and impersonation. Your account is not following them them and has been reported.” before eventually taking a slightly softer tone when replying to another user about the account.  ” … all in good humor, too much mail from confused people as account name a bit too real. follow the rules is all we ask .”

The incident, as reported by NeoWin, has now been resolved with the account being renamed @FakeSinofsky but his promise of free Windows on ARM tablets for all TouchPad owners was both interesting and amusing, both because of the dwindling support TouchPad owners who are still using WebOS are finding, but also because anybody in this position is likely to think that WebOS is better.

Twitter has a great many fake accounts for celebrities and notable people of which Steven Sinofky is just one of the most recent, and Twitter has strict rules for such accounts though it does allow them.  So long as people know that an account is fake there’s really no harm that can be done and it’s all in a bit of fun.  It is reassuring that Microsoft’s legal people haven’t stepped in and taken a harder line on this occasion as might have been expected.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, a great many people online have been criticising Sinofsky for remaining so quiet and not coming forward with the answers to the questions they have been asking about Windows 8.  This could be because at the time those answers didn’t exist, it could have been that Microsoft needed and wanted to steer the dialogue in a certain direction (which is the most likely) or it could be that they didn’t care or want to (unlikely this one).

The sad news though is that HP TouchPad owners won’t be receiving a new Windows on ARM tablet.  As a TouchPad owner myself I can only say Damn!

Microsoft Act on Fake Sinofsky Twitter Account is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

According to numerous rumours, but not yet confirmed by Microsoft, the ubiquitous Start button will no longer be available in Windows 8 Consumer Preview, aka Windows 8 Beta.

The useful and well-known Start button, with its Windows Flag, appeared 17 years ago. It’s one of the pillars for successful computing and why on earth has it been given the flick.

The well-known blogger, Paul Thurrot, confidently states in a recent blog that the “. . . hardware button replaces the Windows button, and it will be present on all PCs and devices that come with Windows 8 preinstalled.” So can we assume that you will be able to access the Start Menu using the Windows key on all current computer keyboards?

Now, if you’ve downloaded and tried out Windows 8 Developer you’ll have come across the Orb Menu, the obvious replacement for the earlier Start Menu. While it hasn’t worked perfectly in the Preview version it has real potential. Maybe Microsoft replaced the Start Menu with the Orb Menu to break us into losing the old Start Menu. Personally I’ve not been too bothered and haven’t missed the Start Menu at all.

Other bloggers claiming to be in the know, state that Microsoft will, in an effort to appease the detractors, provide some form of access to the Start menu by hovering your mouse over the region where it once was. This method is known as using the “hot corner”.  Goodness knows what you’ll see! Will it be the “Orb” menu current in Windows 8 Preview or something else?

Is this a sop for those thousands of users, dare I say millions, currently happy with the old Start menu?

All this remains as pure speculation at this stage, so really we’ll have to wait until Windows 8 Consumer Preview is released at the end of the month. You can bet there’ll be a furore or two when it becomes available for one reason or another!

Whither goeth the Start Menu? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft has released a new mouse called Arc Touch Mouse. It is different from other mouse designs anywhere as the image below shows.

Arc Touch Mouse

Use it just about anywhere, even on a rough wood surface or carpet. The technology behind this is BlueTrack Technology 1. It also allows you to keep wireless control of your computer up to 30 feet away. Pop it up to turn it on, flatten it to turn it off.

How it Works

Arc Touch Mouse’s design allows for quick use and storage. To get it started curve it. Then glide your finger up or down the scroll pad. You get a response precisely to the speed of your finger movement, using a Haptic feedback, i.e. a light vibration that signals scrolling speed. So you scan through documents or web pages as quickly, or as slowly as needed, entirely by feel.

When you’re done, you keep the transceiver plugged into your computer’s USB port, or tuck it into the underside of the mouse. Then flatten Arc Touch Mouse to turn it off, and slip it into your pocket or bag just like a cell phone.

Arc Touch Models

There are three models of the Arc Touch Mouse. The artist edition – Year of the Dragon, Limited edition, and the standard model. Each costs 59.95.

Other Touch Models

Microsoft has developed other mouse touch models.

• The Touch Mouse is the highest valued mouse model. It features a large touch-sensitive surface that responds to one-, two- and three-fingered movements that are optimized for window management.
• Explorer Touch Mouse. It has a four-way Touch scrolling technology for fast navigation. It has five customizable buttons and three scroll speeds that use haptic feedback. It also has a battery life of up to 18 months. It has a low position so it speeds up everyday tasks with a touch strip optimized for quick vertical and horizontal scrolling.

Microsoft New Arc Touch Mouse is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

I know that you all love to personalise your Windows 7 Desktops with the latest themes and wallpapers, so today I’ve got a selection of 3 more brilliant themes for you. They include Chickens that Can’t Fly, Butterflies that can fly and some Dynamic Insects.

Chickens Can’t Fly

A rather interesting title for a Windows 7 Theme I think you’ll agree, and that’s what caught my attention in the first place. This theme is from the Xbox Live Game “Chickens Can’t Fly”. So if you’re a fan of that game I’m sure you’ll love this rather comic theme of Chickens as they attempt to fly.

Chickens Can\'t Fly

Download

Butterflies Theme

This next theme emphasises the natural beauty of butterflies. It features several close up wallpapers of elusive butterflies in their natural habitat.

Butterflies Theme

Download

Dynamic Insect Theme

And the last theme that I have for you today is another dynamic one. For those of you who don’t know, dynamic themes are constantly updated with new wallpapers via a RSS feed so you’ll never get bored of the same old wallpapers.

This theme features close ups of dragonflies, butterflies, lady bugs and more insects, all in their natural environment.

Dynamic Insect Theme

Download

Of course if you only want to use the wallpapers, you can see a guide on how to extract theme from the themes here

Chickens, Insects and Butterflies Make Up 3 More Fantastic Windows 7 Themes is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft has long been concerned about students with academic email addresses buying cheap copies of Windows and Office for friends and family members with the hefty discounts they get with their academic email address.  Now though the company has decided to crack down on the practice by offering a new version of Office 2010 instead.

The new suite, “Microsoft Office University 2010″ is only for those in colleges and universities and replaces the old Student edition.  It you are a student or a member of staff with a .ac email address (as it’s impossible for Microsoft to tell one from another) you can buy the suite which is now on sale in the US for $99.

It contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access and doesn’t come with a product key.  Instead it uses an online activation system where you have to log in with your student email address in order to get the software to work.

My concern is that if you are in the last year or two of your study this could present quite poor value for money as, as soon as you no longer have access to your .ac email address, and some universities can be very quick to rescind them, you will no longer be able to reactivate the product.

One some PCs that aren’t used for much this might be fine for a while, but eventually something will happen that will cause you to have to reinstall Windows, or you will upgrade to Windows 8, perhaps by buying a new computer.  Suddenly then you’ll find the software you’ve paid for can’t be activated or used.  In the new FAQs for the product Microsoft say…

Office University 2010 does not come with a product key. Your eligibility will be verified online before completing purchase. This product will not work without successful verification as you will not have a product key.

You will be required to verify your eligibility online to use this software. 1.Go to www.office.com/verify. 2.Sign in with your Windows Live ID or create one using any email address. 3.Provide your school email address, sign-in ID, or international student identity card (ISIC).

Once you pass verification, the online site displays the product key.

In many ways Office 2010 Home and Student, which is around the same price but can activate on up to three computers, offers much better value for money.  It only includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote but these are the only apps most people need.  While some people might miss Outlook, Microsoft’s free Windows Live Mail offers many of the same features and there are free alternatives to Publisher and Access available.

It is completely understandable for Microsoft to change their stance regards academic activations, but to not reduce the price of the product, leaving it the same as before but unusable after you leave college or university, is an unwelcome surprise.  If you live in a country where the full version of Office 2010 Student is still on sale, and you’re considering buying it, I’d recommend you do so while you can.  It is still available in the UK and other countries for a limited time.

Could the New “Office University 2010″ be Really Bad Value? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Those of you who follow me regularly will know that last year I designed a new Metro-themed skin for my own website, The Long Climb and that if I’m honest it’s not worked very well.  The reason being that what I ended up with was a half way house between a new Metro website and a traditional style blog.  Clearly I was going to have to think again and do some major overhauling of the interface to get it right.

This got me thinking in some depth about what would make a really good Metro website and why that would be.  It’s not just a case of putting together some blocks with stuff on them along with a few circular icons and hoping for the best.  When designing a new website there are all manner of things to consider such as the visual order of the items you see on the page and how the reader is drawn around the page, how items will fit together (which is especially important on a Metro site when symmetry is vital but elements are all different sizes) and how you might accommodate external items such as advertising.

Then you need to consider how to accommodate different types of device.  These include smartphones, tablets of varying makes and sizes and full PCs where, with people running Windows 8 they could be using the Metro version of Internet Explorer, full screen on a 1920 pixel wide monitor.  These all have to be accommodated for so an adaptable design is required that will automatically rescale the elements on a page to fit the width of the browser window.

Then you have to consider that different web browsers on different devices operate in a variety of ways with some supporting plug-ins and some not, such as iOS and the Metro version of IE10 in Windows 8 not supporting Flash (or any plug-ins at all come to that).  It was clear then that the website would have to be true HTML5 in order to have any kind of longevity.

On a device such as Windows Phone or a Windows 8 tablet or computer the design also needs to feel natural and a comfortable fit for the user interface.  When Microsoft designed the Metro UI concept it wasn’t just about slapping some blocks together, it was about using symbols and iconography that we’re used to in our daily lives that allow the content to shine while making the interface itself fade into the background.

Suffice to say that when I really got into this I realised just what a major project I had taken on, especially when I began to think of all things I would want to do with the site in the years to come.  I needed a proper and full design brief then and so began to write such a document to help me get my ideas together, and that a designer and coder could use as a bible when actually building the site.  I thought I’d share this document with you, firstly as it ended up being a 52 page behemoth on how you can design and build a Metro website, but also because I thought you might find some of the content interesting or even useful if you are planning to design and build your own Metro website.

You can view and download the book on this HERE, sadly the embedding here didn’t want to work.  This new website will go live for me sometime this year.

Anatomy of a Metro Website is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

The Lumia 900 is an eagerly anticipated smartphone which is going to be running Windows Phone 7. This device is being seen as the flagship handset for Nokia to hopefully get them back into the smartphone market where they’ve been suffering heavily for the last few years.

It appears that Microsoft Stores in the US are now accepting a $25 deposit to secure one of the first handsets. They are offering the Lumia 900 in either black or white, however we still haven’t heard on a specific price or an actual release date for the device. Some reports have suggested that Microsoft may price it aggressively at $100 while others are saying it will probably be around the $150 – $200 mark. Sales staff in the stores are expecting the devices to arrive at some stage during the second half of March.

When the Lumia 900 is released in the US, it will be exclusive to AT&T and Nokia’s first 4G LTE phone.It sports a huge 4.3-inch display, a polycarbonate body in white or black (possibly cyan as well), a 1.4-gigahertz Qualcomm single-core processor, 512 megabytes of RAM, 16 gigabytes of built-in storage, 8-megapixel/720p video rear camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. It’s quite a feature packed phone and is certainly going to be a serious competitor to the likes of the iPhone 4s and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Nokia really need it to make an impact in the smartphone world, they are struggling big time at the moment and are pretty much relying on this and a few other devices to get people excited by Nokia again.

You can have a look at a hands on of the device in the video below

What do you guys think of the Lumia 900? Is it enough to get Nokia out of the rut it’s stuck in? Would you buy one?

Source:

Techcrunch

Nokia Lumia 900 Is Up For Pre Order is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft and NUI and the Windows 7 Interface

Microsoft has been in interested in developing alternative interfaces for users. Their touch and speech technology, which has entered the Windows 7 OS system and has been a player for different models saw a new partner enter with Microsoft.

Natural User Interface

A natural user interface (NUI) is a user interface that is effectively invisible, or becomes invisible with successive learned interactions, to its users. It is natural because most computer interfaces use artificial control devices where users must learn the operation. Moreover, a NUI relies on a user making a quick transition from novice to expert. Thus, while the interface requires learning, a special interface design gives the user the feeling that they are instantly and continuously successful. This technology allows users to carry out relatively natural motions, movements or gestures that they quickly discover control the computer application or manipulate the on-screen content. The goal is to make the user feel like a natural; and not part of a suspect view that the natural user interface is  somehow a mimicry of nature, or that some inputs to a computer are somehow more ‘natural’ than others.

24/7

So today, Microsoft entered an agreement with 24/7 to jointly bring the power of natural user interfaces (NUIs) and data analytics at cloud scale (Big Data) to enable the future of customer service for businesses.

Last year, Microsoft saw its Kinect system grow from a game computing add on to a science development system. But now, this new partnership extends this NUI system to business applications. With Microsoft and 24/7, new ways to use NUI should develop and this will give businesses a new way to present their data and information. It should also extend the type of users to Windows 7 that weren’t available before because of disabilities or other handicaps. But even though that is not their first goal, which is instead to provide mobile and social media connections, still using this approach can add many users and start the switch over to an alternative natural interface.

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With Microsoft expanding its NUI technology in Windows 7 and  the upcoming Windows 8 this can make an big impact on how users will use computers.

Source: Microsoft Press

Microsoft and NUI and the Windows 7 Interface is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview can’t be too far away now. We’ve had loads of leaks to do with Windows 8 which you can read all about over at our sister site Windows 8 News. Recently there was a few leaked screenshots from the Consumer Preview build of Windows 8 which hasn’t been made available to the public yet. Along with those screenshots came some wallpapers that are set to be made available in the consumer preview of Windows 8.

I know that you guys love the huge range of wallpapers that we have here at Windows7news, so I decided to get the wallpapers from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview  to add to our extensive collection.

The first one is actually the same as the log on wallpaper for Windows 7, the others are new as best as I can make out. There’s also 2 widescreen wallpapers which I imagine would be for multi monitor displays.

You can check them out in the gallery below. To save them simply right click on the image then choose save as.

[Start slideshow]

Get The Windows 8 Consumer Preview Wallpapers For Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

There are times in life when people can’t help but cry out “why has this taken so long?” and today could indeed be considered one of those days as Microsoft, in conjunction with UK Child Protection Agency CEOP have released a child-friendly version of their Internet Explorer web browser

The browser is essentially IE9 as standard with some additional web links and Jumplists embedded into it, and the browser’s content protection feature already turned on.  There is a dedicated startup tab for the “ThinkuKnow” website, where children can get online safety advice, and a kid-friendly jumplist with quick links to services such as their online Safety Centre.

With so many more children now online and at much younger ages than ever before this will be welcomed by parents both in the UK and elsewhere, where the parental control features will still work.

While kids can see CEOP links in the Jumplist, parents will see a different jumplist where they will be able to set the age range of their child or children.  From this IE9 will take over and block any inappropriate content.  There are also settings for both teachers and vulnerable adults, making the browser useful in places where computers are accessed by mentally handicapped people you might not wish to view such material, or where you might not want inappropriate web content appearing in a classroom.

Now I should point out that this is no catch-all and occasionally some things will filter through, but as a general idea goes I have to take my hat off to Microsoft but chastise them equally for taking so long to get around to it.  Frankly this feature should have been built into Windows years ago.

You can download the modified browser from the ThinkuKnow website and if you have young children, the browser supports children up to 16 years of age, then it can only be a worthwhile addition to the family PC.

Microsoft Release Child-Friendly IE9 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Mango Interaction12 Awards Winner

Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) was declared a winner in the connecting category at the Interaction Design Awards. This is the inaugural award sponsored by Google, and held in Dublin, Ireland. There were 26 winning projects including applications, games, instrument panels and installations. The best in show went to LoopLoop for Sifteo cubes. And overall there were over 300 entries from 33 countries.

Microsoft’s Smartphone Mango

Windows Phone 7 received the award for the best smartphone. The reward mentioned that Windows Phone is device that puts people first, making it easier to stay close and connected to the people that matter to you. With the Mango, a person or group that you work with or other important people can be pinned right to the Start screen, and with Live Tiles, you can see a their latest status update at a glance. If you have tie ins to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn they will come easy because their connections are built right in to the phone, this way even a simple contact card comes alive with news about what your friends are doing, where they’ve checked in, and the photos they’ve posted. Mango makes it easy by letting users stay in touch with SMS, Windows Messenger, and Facebook IM all in one unified messaging experience.

Mango

The judges noted “that the best interaction design doesn’t just make things easier to use, it opens up new spaces for play and collaboration to enhance our relationship with the world and each other.”

So with Mango this occurs every time when your friends comment on your Tweets or status updates, instead of chasing them down in different apps – now they come right to you, all in one place. That is why it made an impression, and rightly so.

Overall, for Windows Phone 7, its been a good year so far as  Nokia’s gorgeous Lumia 900 captured the coveted Best of CES 2012 award for smartphones last month, and now this.

Source: IXDA

Mango – An Interaction12 Awards Winner is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Last week I wrote about how a leaked Microsoft Windows Phone video, aimed at Nokia and perhaps other partners detailed some of the features we can expect with the next major update to the Windows Phone operating system, currently codenamed “Apollo” and due perhaps towards the end of this year.

What was missing were details of new screen sizes and form factors that would be supported.  Currently all Windows Phone have a standard screen resolution of 480 by 800 pixels and other handsets sporting Android and Apple’s iPhone are going much higher than this.

Now, TechRadar have obtained a photograph of a Nokia slide detailing new Windows Phone form-factors.  While this slide doesn’t demonstrate the any new resolutions directly it does show some different sizes for handsets, including a really dinky, iPod Nano-sized one (though I’m not sure how useful something this size would be as a phone.

The interesting part is the form-factor shown on the far right of the slide which, unless I miss my guess, looks remarkably like a 7-inch tablet!

It’s been rumoured for a while now that the next version of Windows Phone will be based on the Windows 8 MinWin kernel.  This makes complete sense from Microsoft’s point of view as just having a single operating system kernel across their products, as Apple does, makes development and patching much faster and more efficient.

If this Windows Phone form-factor is indeed a 7-inch tablet, what would it be running?  Would it be Windows Phone (which the slide seems to suggest), Windows 8 or will Windows Phone and Windows 8 indeed become the same product by this point?

To be honest it’s too difficult to call but Microsoft already squashed their fantastic Courier tablet prototype as they didn’t want two competing tablet operating systems on sale from the company.  It is unlikely then that Windows Phone, as it currently stands, would ever be allowed to run on a tablet device.  It’s also entirely possible that the information Nokia are putting out in this slide is either erroneous or just plain wrong.

Either way this slide is fascinating and will no doubt start all manner or speculation around the web on what Microsoft sees as the future of their two mobile operating systems.  What do you think, and what would like to see happen with Windows Phone and Windows 8?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

New Windows Phone Form-Factors Emerge, with one Huge Surprise! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

You have Windows 7 operating system and want to enjoy your high speed Internet connection on many computers or you want to share it with your friends who live nearby you? Windows7News will show you how to use this functionality in Windows 7 with the help of Connectify. This software will indeed transform your computer into an internet access point, the only thing you need is a WiFi card. Here are the steps you have to follow to make this work:

Step 1: Make sure first that your WiFi card is enabled by going to Control Panel, Network and Internet, View Network computers and devices, right click on your WiFi card and then choose Enable. If you WiFi card is already enabled don’t change anything and continue to next step.

Step 1: Download Connectify for Windows 7.

Step 2: Run the installation file and accept the license agreement, the installation in simple and only takes a few seconds. During installation your computer will probably have to restart few times so don’t worry about that.

Step 3: Now once installation is finished, start Connectify. If an update for Connectify is available, make sure you download it and update the software. Then run the program.

Step 4: Your previously enabled wireless device is automatically detected. Then you must enter the name of your wireless network.

Step 5: A password of at least 8 characters is required. This will serve users to connect to your access point.

Step 6: Once the password is set, below password field you will have to choose which internet connection you want to share, click on dropdown men and select one.

Step 7: Then click Star a Hotspot button. It may take a minute or two until its setup.

Step 8: Once it’s done. Windows Security Alert may popup, choose Allow Access.

Here you are now with your own WiFi access point type WPA2-DSK. It is accessible from the list of wireless networks Network and Sharing Center, make sure you provide the password to people you want to share the connection with!

Note for those users with an Intel WiFi card, a simple driver’s update can in most cases, activate Windows 7 Virtual WiFi so you can benefit from the ability to turn your computer into an Internet Access Point without having to go through Connectify. Also make sure your WiFi network is secure, and always pay attention who is connected on your network and who is using your internet connection.

Windows 7: How to share an Internet connection via WiFi is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

This is a good time to think about the Microsoft’s experiment with Windows 8 Developer Preview. From what I’ve read on the web, huge numbers of interested folk downloaded and installed it in varying iterations, some in dual-boot mode and others as a straight installation. The reactions of these users varied from impressed to annoyed. The latter were frustrated with the so-called Charms (Apps to some) and its associated Charms menu (the new look Start menu), unimpressed by that the Start menu no longer allows you to shut down the operation. Others were impressed with the touch feature and the fact that you can still use the mouse and keyboard.

After a bit of digging in delving I found several ways to shut down Windows 8, these involved  keystroke combinations – see my earlier blog “Ways Means to Shutdown Windows 8 Preview“. Despite these minor disadvantages I remained impressed with the new look ribbon bar in Internet Explorer with the return of the Up button and look forward into the beta version which comes out at the end of the month.

In anticipation of this I have now with one exception, my touchscreen computer, removed all versions of Windows 8. This was a simple matter where it was installed in dual-mode but on my netbook I had to reinstall Windows 7 from scratch.

One thing I’m looking forward to is the possibility of installing Windows  8 on a 32-bit Flash drive and being able to run it in its full form on any computer. There has been a lot of discussion about this feature on the Web.

The deadline for the death of Windows 8 preview is 12th March 2012 on my remaining computer and I will regret its passing but look forward to its reincarnation .

The Passing of Windows 8 Preview is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Valentines day is fast approaching, so here are some new Windows 7 themes that you can download an use on your desktop. These are Roses, and they are some of the most wonderful looking pictures ever.

Queen of the Flowers

Known as “the queen of flowers,” roses have been valued for thousands of years for their beauty and fragrance. Their connection to romance also spans the generations, popping up in songs, poems, and in lovers’ bouquets since at least the Middle Ages.

Backdrop

A rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa, and there are over 100 species. They form a group of erect shrubs, and climbing or trailing plants, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Flowers are large and showy, in colors ranging from white through yellows and reds. Most species are native to Asia, with smaller numbers native to Europe, North America, and northwest Africa. The name rose comes from French, itself from Latin rosa.

Earliest roses are known to have flourished 35 million-years ago  and petrified rose wreaths have been unearthed from ancient Egyptian tombs.

Roses are best known as ornamental plants grown for their flowers in the garden and sometimes indoors. They are also used for commercial perfumes and commercial cut flower crops. Some also work as landscape plants. They also have minor medicinal uses.

Art

Roses often appear in art and appear in various artistic disciplines. They appear in portraits, illustrations, on stamps, as ornaments or as architectural elements. One artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté is known for his detailed watercolors of flowers, particularly roses.

Legends and mythology

In Greek mythology, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, created the rose from her tears and the blood of her lover Adonis. The Romans, turning Aphrodite into their goddess Venus, also adopted the rose: it became the symbol of love and beauty. Cupid, offering a rose when trying to bribe the God of Silence to hush Venus’s amorous escapades, made the flower into a symbol for secrecy.

[Start slideshow]

12►

New Roses Themes for Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

A few blogs ago, I posted about Microsoft’s 10^th anniversary with their Trustworthy Computing. Now the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) format is clear. For Microsoft, whose challenge is to lead the software community in ways to combat cybercrime, the SDL is their way of introducing a rational plan to meet that goal.

Security managers and enterprises should follow six practices. Training involves secure design, threat modeling, secure coding and testing, and privacy. All software should meet these initial conditions in order to establish a baseline of operations.

Security Requirements

Then there are security requirements. Meaning that these issues should be upfront and not as an afterthought. If the security element is upfront, then the design will be different than if it occurred as an afterthought. Questions must be asked such as which portions of the project will require models or design reviews before release.

Design Practices

Next are the design practices. Here it is imperative that security managers establish design requirements. These include the creation of security and privacy design specifications, and a specification review, and specification of minimal cryptographic design requirements. How these get implemented and where in the program is important. So having a handle on the approach beforehand will be necessary to making the effort a success.

Implementation Practices

Implementation practices are important. After the development of the software, the development team mandates and enforces best practices to be followed for the duration of the project. This prohibits variation and presents consistency in the result. This way if there is a problem, they will know where it came from. If there wasn’t a best practices portfolio, then failures could come from more than part of the program, without the ability to zero-in on the fault.

Release Practices

Finally, release practices must be available. That means that the team must create the incident response plan, perform the final security review and archive all pertinent data for post-release servicing of the software. In this way they can anticipate issues and not be surprised if customers do complain. It also means having a standby system to correct the faults.

Source: Microsoft Security LifeCycle Fact Sheet

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Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft are constantly working on making new themes for Windows 7, as a result there’s a great selection of themes for Windows 7 available (check out our extensive gallery here). This latest theme from them is entitled “Animal Affection” and is one of the cutest themes I’ve ever seen.

This is really a perfect theme for all you animal lovers out there, you’ll be constantly staring at these awe inspiring wallpapers every day. Even reading Microsoft’s description of the theme is enough to set any animal lovers heart racing.

Goldfish kiss, horses nuzzle, hummingbirds tenderly touch beaks, cats nap in an intertwined heap, and leopards groom each other in this collection of adorable displays of affection from the animal kingdom. A free theme for Windows 7.

I’m not going to keep you waiting any longer. Check out the gallery of wallpapers below and you’ll also find the download link for this theme. Of course if you only want the wallpapers from this theme you can follow my guide here on how to get them.

[Start slideshow]

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Animal Affection

Download

Windows 7 Animal Affection Theme is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

There are E-mail Privacy Issues associated with Google. If you didn’t know this, Google Chrome and Gmail, and Google Apps read everything that you put in there. If you are worried about your privacy, then Google’s apps are not what you want to use because they get information from you. If you use Gmail, be aware that they actually read the contents of your mail (both sent and received, even if you aren’t a Gmail user but just sending to someone who is) in order to decide what kind of ads to serve up to you.

And their search engine, Chrome, interacts with the e-mail, which most of the time is up all day long. This ties the searches to your email account, and they read that too.

Furthermore, if you visit YouTube, they get connected to the same e-mail profile and once again that information is stored on Google’s servers.

Hotmail and Office 365

If you don’t like those scenarios, then you should give a second look to Hotmail of Office 365. Hotmail doesn’t deliver adds to you based on your content, nor does it change search results based on your email content, and your video watches don’t come into a database at Microsoft. In other words, your stuff is your stuff, not Microsoft’s.

The same goes for Office 365, which is Microsoft’s answer to app operations on the Cloud.  On Office 365, you can create

Word, or Excel information and access it from anywhere in the world. Since the information is stored on a Microsoft Data Center, it would be easy for Microsoft to access it. But they don’t. Once again, your stuff is your stuff.

This is in sharp contrast to Google’s view that they can use your content to send you ads targeted specifically to your search quests. Will this get Google into trouble? With the law? At this point concerns have been raised about what will Google do with the information, and they are trying to back stall some of the criticisms. But Microsoft doesn’t have those issues.

Download Hotmail

Download Office365

Source: Microsoft Blog

E-mail Privacy Issues and a Microsoft Fix is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Some details of thew next big release of Windows Phone, codenamed ‘Apollo’ have emerged today from a video hosted by Windows Phone chief Joe Belfiore for partners including Nokia, and seen by PocketNow.  The video covered a few themes that are all logical evolutions of the platform.

Hardware

Windows Phone 8 is set to have some changes made to the supported hardware now that it is a mature platform.  These changes include support for multi-core processors and three new screen resolutions.  These weren’t specified but we can expect them to be both lower and higher than the current 800 by 480 pixels.  This will allow new high-end handsets to compete more effectively with the iPhone and some Android phones, while also opening up new markets for low-price smartphones, a market Microsoft has been keen to get into.  NFC will also be supported for contactless payments and finally Micro SD Card support is coming to the platform which will be welcomed by many people.

Windows 8 Integration & Data Management

The new version of Windows Phone will work more effectively with Windows 8, no longer requiring the Zune desktop software to synchronise music, photos and files. There’s no word on how Microsoft will actually do this but there will be a new “syncing relationship” with Windows 8.

There will also be a new Xbox companion app for Windows 8 and better SkyDrive support, which might explain the different Windows 8 sync.  For those worried about their data connection the OS will be better able to handle WiFi networks, automatically prioritising them for data, and providing a Live Tile showing your data usage and throughput.  It will also auto-connect to available and appropriate networks, though presumably security conscious owners will be able to turn this feature off.

Internet Explorer 10 on the phone will also use a proxy server to compress images.  Microsoft say this can save up to 30% of the total browsing data usage on the phone.

Developers

Microsoft are going to continue the already excellent work they are doing for app developers by further improving the tools that can convert iPhone and Android apps for Windows Phone.  Belfiore apparently said he expects 100,000 apps for Windows Phone by the time Apollo is available at the end of this year.

Business Support

Businesses are also being catered for with better features including 128-bit full disk Bitlocker encryption and, finally, the ability to deploy custom apps directly from a Windows Server environment without having to go through the Windows Phone app store.

The Apollo update is expected at the end of this year along with handsets that will have it pre-installed.  This probably means we will begin to see leaked details of these new handsets around late summer with releases in late October to get them out for the Christmas market.  A launch at this time will match the expected launch of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8.

These are just a few details of the next major update for Windows Phone that is still also rumoured to run on the Windows desktop MinWin kernel.  We will no doubt hear further details later in the year but it is clear that Microsoft are aiming to ‘evolve’ the operating system in sensible and organic ways, with the better integration with Windows 8 a particularly good idea.

Windows Phone 8 Details Emerge is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft is a success in the retail market. How so? Microsoft Dynamics comes at a time when retailers need to address multiple customer issues quickly and simultaneously. It is a complete hub that provides core capabilities like point of sale, inventory, supply chain operations, and financials. But on top of that it integrates with excel, SharePoint, and Visual Studio.

You can look at it as the ultimate control panel for a retailer to easily automate, streamline, control, and adapt various aspects of their business simultaneously. And given that many companies are now using this retail software to help their retail operations, makes Microsoft a success in the retail market.

Ease of use

One thing that many businesses hate is the paperwork that goes with creating a new distribution channel. That is one of the things that Dynamics can offer, a quick and fast way to complete important projects. Dynamics lets users see their entire business graphically, and then drag and drop graphics to create new store locations in the system or to add new distribution channels.

World Wide Success

Customers in 30 countries have adopted Microsoft Dynamics These include DAVIDsTEA, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Sephora , Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, Malabar Gold, Turisme de Barcelona, Carol’s Daughter, Sally Beauty Supply, and Ashley Furniture Industries. These companies show that their retail establishments become easier to operate at the software level, and also then increase customer satisfaction and sales.

Scheduling

Avoiding problems and making transitions easier can be seen with the operations of Mattress Firm, one of the largest retailers of mattresses with over 800 locations and 30 warehouses. To open any new warehouse or location the task could be a daunting issue for management. But with Dynamics, this is an easy task because management can piece together what their location will look like and how soon it can be put in place. Thus they can achieve every enterprises dream, growing fast and minimizing problems.

Source: Microsoft

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Yesterday the very first official Kinect devices for Windows went on sale in 12 different countries all over the world including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain and the US. The initial retail price is $249 and Microsoft announced plans to have a special discounted price of $149 for qualified education users in the near future.

In a blog post over at MSDN, Craig Eisler, The general manager for Kinect wrote about the improvements that Microsoft have made in the recent Kinect SDK and developer tools. Version 1.0 of the SDK and Runtime tools are now available to download from here

Some of the improvements that they’ve made in this version are outlined below:

• Support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer
• Significantly improved skeletal tracking, including the ability for developers to control which user is being tracked by the sensor
• Near Mode for the new Kinect for Windows hardware, which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimeters in front of the device
• Many API updates and enhancements in the managed and unmanaged runtimes
• The latest Microsoft Speech components (V11) are now included as part of the SDK and runtime installer
• Improved “far-talk” acoustic model that increases speech recognition accuracy
• New and updated samples, such as Kinect Explorer, which enables developers to explore the full capabilities of the sensor and SDK, including audio beam and sound source angles, color modes, depth modes, skeletal tracking, and motor controls
• A commercial-ready installer which can be included in an application’s set-up program, making it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployments.
• Robustness improvements including driver stability, runtime fixes, and audio fixes

The Kinect sensor for Windows comes with a shorter USB cable and is also more sensitive to movement up close to the camera than the current Xbox 360 Kinect sensors.

Kinect For Windows Has Arrived is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft are desperate to squash Windows XP.  The operating system is now more than 10 years old and has been replaced twice!  Yet, despite all of this, and because Vista was late and (frankly) rubbish, millions of people are still using the “comfortable old shoe” and despite their now being less than 800 days left for extended malware and security patch support, they are mostly resolutely refusing to upgrade, insisting that Microsoft will have to back down instead and continue support until their computers eventually die, or perhaps even longer.

Now figures released from NetMarketShare appear to show that Windows XP usage actually increased slightly in January of this year, up to 47.19% from 46.52%!

XP’s usage has been steadily declining since the launch of Windows 7, with a very healthy 56.78% of computers using it in March 2011 compared to just 25.23% of computers running Windows 7.  Now Windows sits at 36.4% but this still lags more than 10% behind Windows XP, which resolutely refuses to die.

Data released by other companies in the coming months may show XP still on the decline, or they may back up these figures.  It is interested to see a small jump in XP usage however which also comes in a month that saw Windows 7 usage drop slightly from 36.99% to 36.4%.

XP users are becoming a bit of an odd bunch, maintaining their unconditional love for an operating system that’s widely known to be very insecure and was a figure of fun throughout its main life.  Around the time XP was being installed on new PCs, it was generally considered that GNU/Linux users were the people who declared unconditional love for their operating system.

Now though Linux is widely considered good enough to switch to on a full-time basis and nobody would ever criticise Apple’s resolve again.  Windows 7 users can now sit safe from name-calling and fun-poking, knowing that they’re as secure as they need to be and it’s XP users who are on the receiving end of the jokes that GNU/Linux users received in the past.

So what is your view of this news?  Do you believe it or do you fully expect XP to usage to drop further?  Are you still using XP and don’t want to move to WIndows 7 or Windows 8?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

Did Windows XP Usage Rise in January 2012? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Well January flew by if you ask me, it seems like only yesterday that I posted about how I was going to start off a series of publishing Smashing Magazine’s calendar wallpapers for every month. Now it’s February, and while it may be the shortest month of the year, even with a leap year this year, I’ve got no less than 27 wallpapers for you this month. That’s nearly a new wallpaper for you every single day!

Of course all these wallpapers come courtesy of Smashing Magazine where they have a bunch of very talented artists who contribute to their collection every month. I think you’ll agree with me that there are some very creative desktop wallpapers in this collection.

I wont go posting all the download links here for the wallpapers as Smashing Magazine have that covered here. They offer you multiple different resolutions as well as an option to get the wallpaper without the calendar. But most importantly they credit all the the authors who contributed so be sure to check it out.

I’ve published a gallery of the images below so you can have a look at them for yourself.

[Start slideshow]

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Go to Smashing Magazine to download them

February 2012 Smashing Magazine Calendar Wallpapers is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft’s Internet explorer has been the dominant browser for the last 10 years. A few months ago, Microsoft showed that IE9 had surpassed IE8 in US growth. In January 2012, continued to grow, even out pacing Firefox and Chrome.

Cut the Rope

One of the applications that Microsoft is happy to tout because it works so well in IE9 is Cut the Rope. This game now has an HTML 5 version, with 25 levels now available online for free.  With the power of HTML5, IE9 and Windows, experiences that were once limited to applications are now coming to life across the web.

Cut the Rope

The game is about a green monster who is hungry. As a player, you can use your mouse to manipulate ropes, airbags and bubbles to feed him candy, and collect stars along the way for more points. But here is a fair warning, it is an addictive game which has been downloaded over 60 million times to date.

Other Games

Other games that are working well and popular on IE9 are Pirates Love Daisies, Tron, and WorldsBiggestPackman. These games extend the limits of HTML5, and Microsoft wants users to see that the browser can be more than a viewer of websites. They are pursuing a lot of new experiences not only showcase the beauty of the web, but demonstrate how fast, interactive and rich the web is becoming, enabled by platforms such as IE9 and Windows 7.

Indeed, the old days of file transfer and e-mail, which helped form the ideas behind the Internet, never saw how complex packet transfers could actually become.

Even in recent years, developers in the Internet or WWW, had a limited view of what they could do. But with new browsers running on sophisticated operating systems, like Windows 7, and its anticipated replacement, Windows 8, there may be a lot of new concepts coming.

This is why it may be that IE9 is just the right browser for users to work with who want a different Internet experience.

Download IE9

IE9 is growing and Multiple Games can run on the Browser is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

On January 20th, Microsoft announced the release of an open source project which is an SDK for Windows Phone for Amazon’s Web Services (AWS). The SDK essentially gives developers, ”…a speed dial that lets them quickly connect and integrate Windows Phone applications with AWS (S3, SimpleDB, and SQS Cloud Services).

Amazon’s own Terry Wise spoke about the new offering for Windows Phone and its benefits to customers:

“Our approach with AWS is to provide developers with choice and flexibility to build applications the way they want and give them unlimited storage, bandwidth and computing resources, while paying only for what they use. We welcome Windows Phone developers to the AWS community and look forward to providing customers with new ways to build and deploy Windows Phone applications,” he says.

The SDK will allow developers to have more choice as to which cloud services they use when developing their mobile applications for Windows Phone. Being a cloud-friendly platform it is important for Microsoft to leverage as many cloud services as possible, even if it is a competing service to Microsoft’s own SkyDrive, like Amazon’s Cloud Drive.

You can find the SDK here.

Source: MSDN Blog

Windows Phone Beta SDK Released for Amazon Web Services is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Gears of War 3 has been another highly successful game in its series. In fact it seems to be so popular that I’ve managed to find 3 different themes all based on Gears of War 3!

You’ll find all the download links beneath each theme, and if you only want to use the wallpapers from these themes, see my guide on how to do it.

The first theme I’ve found is actually from when it was released back in September of 2011.

Celebrate the launch of the latest installment in the Gears of War series for Xbox 360 with this free Windows 7 theme, featuring glorious images from the savage, fantastical world of the all-new Gears of War 3.

Gears of War 3 Launch Theme

Download

The second theme is a general Gears of War theme based on the portraits of the main characters  Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago and Anya Stroud

Prepare your desktop for battle with this free Windows 7 theme containing portraits of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago and Anya Stroud from Gears of War 3, the latest edition to the megahit Xbox series.

Gears of War 3 Theme

Download

The third and final theme is actually based on Fan Made wallpapers. DeviantArt held a competition for people to come up with some wallpapers for the gaming series and this theme includes a selection of them.

The visionary, apocalyptic world of Gears of War is interpreted by fans in this free theme for Windows 7, which presents winning entries and honorable mentions in the deviantART contest for Gears of War 3.

Gears of War 3 Fan Theme

Download

3 Gears of War 3 Themes For Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft’s push to getting more companies onto the Cloud met with another success. Techstars Cloud, and Microsoft announced an agreement whereby new entrepreneurial companies would be participating in Cloud operations.

According to TechStars they “will select approximately ten companies focused on cloud infrastructure to participate. Chosen companies will receive seed funding, mentorship from many of the world’s top cloud infrastructure thought leaders, and will have access to perks available only to TechStars companies and alumni. The program will be managed by Jason Seats and Nicole Glaros. Jason was the founder of Slicehost (acquired by RackSpace in 2008) and has deep understanding of cloud infrastructure and entrepreneurship. Nicole Glaros is currently the Managing Director of TechStars in Boulder, and will relocate to San Antonio to co-manage the inaugural program with Jason.”

Microsoft’s New Cloud Promotional Offer

For Microsoft, they will offer access to up to $60,000 worth of Azure capacity for up to 24 months at no cost. With the initial limit of 10 seed companies, Microsoft will make their services available, and then hope that the companies continue to work in the Cloud capacity, with Microsoft as the Cloud holder. For Microsoft, the move is clear, get startup companies hooked on Azure, and they will likely continue to use it after their initial time period expires.

Global Accelerator

Techstars is not the only company that has this kind of offer. Global Accelerator also has a promotion for high quality start-up companies. The Network provides professional development, networking opportunities, training, consulting and ongoing support for members.

Startup Development

The startup development model is one that incorporates several features, and Techstar and Global Accelerator have a series of steps that new companies need to follow in order to be successful. The following graphs display that model.

Next, the startup has this element:

The culmination is  the product hypothesis:

With this to work with, it is no surprise that Microsoft feels that these entrepreneurial companies can offer a method of achieving success. The company succeeds, and so does Microsoft in the long run.

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Microsoft’s New Cloud Promotional Offer is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

We’re just weeks away from Mobile World Congress where industry experts expect Microsoft will be sharing news and information regarding the next update for their smartphone OS, Tango. From what we’ve heard through various leaks and unnamed sources, Tango will be an update designed to bring the lowest minimum hardware down even further so Microsoft can compete in the lower-end smartphone categories and markets.

Aside from that, there isn’t much else we think we know about the update as Microsoft has done a pretty good job at keeping things quiet about the future of the platform. What has been reported by WPSauce and repeated by The Verge is that the next update could bring support for over 120 different languages (currently there is support for 35) giving the software manufacturer the ability to go after geographic locations which are usually overlooked by the likes of Apple and their iOS platform. Additionally, there is word that the future of Windows Phone will also give developers support for writing apps in lower-level programming languages, like C++.

All of this is speculation until we hear anything official from Microsoft, so take it as such.

Tango to Bring Support for Over 120 New Languages and Support for C++? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft are hard at work getting their next version of Microsoft Office ready. The next generation of Office has been codenamed “Office 15″ and has just reached “Technical Preview” status but we can expect to see a public beta over the summer. In a blog post over on the Office blog, PJ Hough talks a bit more about Office 15.

Now that Office 15 has reached the technical preview stage, it means that it’s released to a very small number of carefully selected consumers who are bound to non disclosure acts. They test it out and give feedback, but aren’t allowed to share anything with the rest of the world. This keeps us in the dark and prevents competitors finding out what Microsoft is currently working on.

In the blog post, Hough mentions that this is Microsoft’s most ambitious project for Office to date.

At this early point in our development cycle, I’m not able to share too much about Office 15, but I can tell you Office 15 is the most ambitious undertaking yet for the Office Division. With Office 15, for the first time ever, we will simultaneously update our cloud services, servers, and mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and Visio. Quite simply, Office 15 will help people work, collaborate, and communicate smarter and faster than ever before.

Also Office 15 is just a codename for the project at the moment, it’s expected that the final release will be called either Office 2012 or 2013, depending on when it’s released.

That brings us onto another question, will Office 15 be ready in time for Windows 8?

Windows 8 will probably hit the market around the end of this year, and I’m sure Microsoft will want to have a good selection of word editing tools to go with it. But judging by how late this technical preview is, we could be waiting a while. Office 15 will more than likely feature improvements which will make it more tablet friendly, they may even make a slightly metro themed version of Office, we don’t know as of yet.

But Microsoft are probably dying to get it ready in time for Windows 8, but it will be a very tight release schedule for them if they want to get it out in time.

Office 15 Reaches Technical Preview is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

How important is the Azure Cloud for business? For Underwriters Laboratory, the answer is very. They have begun deploying Microsoft Office 365, powered by Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Lync Online, to its 50 offices worldwide, Microsoft Corp. announced today. UL, a global independent safety science company, provides solutions for safer products, processes and work environments for more than 66,000 customers.

What is Underwriters Laboratories (UL)?

It is an independent product safety certification organization. It was established in the late 1890’s with company headquarters in Northbrook, Illinois. The goal of personal safety in products is its model. To accomplish product safety it develops standards and test procedures for products, materials, components, assemblies, tools and equipment. It also evaluates and certifies the efficiency of a company’s business processes through its management system registration programs. Finally, UL analyzes drinking and other clean water samples using its drinking water laboratory in South Bend, Indiana, where it also evaluates products for environmental sustainability through UL Environment, another subsidiary.

Underwriter Laboratories headquarters in Illinois

The Cloud System

UL didn’t start with Cloud operations, they started with Microsoft Office, but quickly discovered that their employees, from engineers, to other staff, were comfortable with the applications. Next they decided that that with a growing  company staff, it needed to have a coordinated software application that all could use, especially their international staff. Plus with the acquisition of 12 companies in the last 3 years this became a serious issue. There are also 50 offices worldwide.

So the solution that developed, became almost a no-brainer; they adopted Office 365 cloud service that specializes on Windows Office applications. With it, several things happened. They were able to get on-board thousands of employees in a matter of weeks. The impact on how people worked became even more important, because now they were able to communicate and collaborate together, whether it was across continents or just down the hallways from each other.  Also, this collaboration was now available 24/7. This means that work can be completed faster, and the results made official.

In all, Office 365 cloud services are the perfect tools for a company that has multiple offices around the world. It keeps everyone in tune with the company’s expectations. Plus the cost to the company is reduced because upgrades are made at the Cloud, not at the company site.

Source: Microsoft News

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In this article you’ll learn how to use Windows Live Mesh and share folders in SkyDrive. As well, you will learn how to personalize each computer in your Live Mesh setup by changing their name and picture symbol for easier identification.

But first let’s take a closer look at Sky Drive.

What is SkyDrive?

• Sky Drive is part of Microsoft’s Windows Live range of online services, and uses Windows Live ID to control access to files, allowing users to create files, store files, and make them publicly available.
• SkyDrive allows users to upload files to Cloud Storage on the Web and then access them using a Web browser. It is directly accessible via Live Mail and Hotmail or using Windows Live Mesh. 
  
  

  SkyDrive in Action

• SkyDrive allows users to store Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents within the Web browser.
• SkyDrive provides 25 GB of free personal on-line storage, with individual files limited to 100 MB. Files are listed as private or public and can be shared with contacts.
• SkyDrive files can be viewed and edited in Microsoft Office and new files created within this environment.

Sharing folders on the Web (using SkyDrive)

Here’s how you go about storing a folder on SkyDrive.

1.      Open Windows Live Mesh.

2.      In the opening screen, select the folder to be synced.

Selecting a folder to Sync

3.      This expands the synced folder showing more information. On the right-hand side, click Select devices.

Selecting Devices

4.      A new window “Where do you want to sync …” opens.

5.      Check the box against SkyDrive synced storage and then click the Ok button.

Selecting SkyDrive

6.      In the next screen, the Folder is synced with SkyDrive.

Folder synced with SkyDrive

Checking the Synced Folder in SkyDrive

Checking Up

Fine Tuning Windows Live Mesh

To save confusion and to show their type you can change the name and picture symbol for each computer you are using Windows Live Mesh. It is a simple matter to change the name and the picture for each computer.

1.      Set all your computers running, in the main computer select Go to Windows Live Devices.

Accessing Windows Live Devices

2.      Windows Live opens showing all registered Devices.

Note: In this illustration there are four computers all listed and running under Windows Live Mesh. Each has the same name and the same picture associated with each it. Confusing!

Four Computers looking alike!

Well, Windows Live Mesh allows you to customize the registered computers so you can create a meaningful name and have a more suitable picture associated with it.

3.     You can personalize each one changing the Name and the picture symbol. To do this select one and click Personalize.

4.      Enter a more appropriate name and change the illustration to suit.

5.      Click the Save button. Do this for each one in turn.

The Personalize Window

6.      Once you make these changes the new-look Synced Computers will be easily identified.

Newly Personalized Computers

So there you have it, You have changed to look of the computers in Live Mesh so they are easily identified.

Windows Live Mesh is well worth taking a closer look!

Latest Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 3 – Using SkyDrive is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Windows XP has long been a thorn in Microsoft’s side.  It’s as comfortable as an old show for many people who skipped over Windows Vista due to its awful reputation and the late delivery of that OS.  Now it’s over ten years old, was written for the beginning of the Internet revolution and simply can’t cope with the security demands of the modern age.  The company has been working very hard in recent years to encourage companies to move away to Windows 7, which is a very compatible and secure OS, but it’s not been entirely successful.

Part of the problem is because many companies are using bespoke software designed for XP or Internet Explorer 6 that simply won’t run in Windows 7 and more modern browsers.  These companies have resisted for years any call to re-engineer these software packages.  Now though the end is coming fast.

Windows XP is already out of mainstream support where service packs and upgrades are provided to support new standards and technologies.  Now there are less than 800 days left until extended support ends also.  This deadline has already been extended by Microsoft once because of the Vista debacle, but it won’t be extended again.  After April 2014 there will no longer be any updates or patches to maintain security or stability in the operating system.  When this happens we can be certain that malware writers and criminals the world over will be targeting XP with new zeal and fervour.

It’s odd that it seems only recently that I was reporting that XP only had 1,000 days of support left.  That last 200 days has gone very quickly indeed and it won’t be long before I’ll be reporting only 500 days of support left and then 300 days, less than a year.

I believe it’s only at this point that companies will begin the rush to migrate, but it can take 18 to 24 months to complete such a migration and it’s a huge undertaking for any IT department to manage.  It’s becoming clear though that companies need to start taking this issue seriously, and that home users and enthusiasts should begin to think about saving up for a newer computer themselves.  Windows XP is now well into its final days, and the clock is ticking.

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I think we can all agree that Windows 7 didn’t really get off to a flying start when it came to tablets. While Microsoft did do a bit of work making Windows 7 more touch friendly, there was still a lot left to be desired. Microsoft hadn’t really planned on entering the tablet market with Windows 7, they’re planning on doing that with its successor, Windows 8. Personally the only time I’ve seen a tablet running Windows 7 has been a display model in a shop. I’ve never actually seen one in the wild.

There’s a reason for that, according to statistics from Strategy Analytics, Windows 7 is only running on about 1.5 percent of tablets out there. That means that there’s approximately 400,000 Windows 7 tablets around the world at the moment, out of a total of 27 million that were shipped last quarter.

Of course I’m sure you all know who’s got the number one spot. It is of course the Apple iPad which now controls 58 percent of the market. Android on the other hand isn’t that far behind with 39 percent of the market. Of course you have to remember that the Android army includes the likes of Amazon, Samsung, Asus, Toshiba and more.

Global tablet shipments have grown at an incredible pace as well, 26.8 million units were shipped in Q4 2011, up 150 percent on 2010′s numbers.

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In my previous article, Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 1, I dealt with installing Windows Live Mesh and left it at that.

Using Windows Live Mesh

Now it’s time to put Windows Live Mesh through its paces sharing some folders/files with other computers in a network.

Starting Off

1.      Open Windows Live Mesh.

2.      The computer you are working on is identified.

3.      Your next task is to include any other computers on your network. To do this, select “Go to Windows Live Devices”. By the way, Sky Drive (Microsoft’s Cloud feature) is active once you log on and ready to go but more of this in my next article.

Go to Windows Live Devices

Note: To access other computers within your home network you must have installed and added Windows Live Mesh from Windows Live Essentials. This requires you to have either a Hotmail or a Live Mail account and to be signed in on the other computer(s) too. When you have done this Live Mesh will open showing your base computer, the one you are working on, and the target computer(s).

Computers for Live Sync

You are now ready to sync a selected file on your base computer which will appear on the target computer.

Syncing folders between Networked Computers

1.      Turn on your second computer. This will be the one you want to share folders with.

2.      Next, activate Windows Live Mesh on both computers.

3.      On your second computer you’ll be asked to log on, use Windows Live or a Hotmail account.

Note: If you haven’t got either you’ll need to create an account.

4.      Now back in the main computer, select Sync a folder.

5.      Windows Live Mesh displays all available locations on your computer.

6.      Double-click My Documents folder and select the sub-folder you want synced. 

8.      The Select Devices window opens.

9.      In the “Where do you want to sync . . . “window check the locations and click the Ok button.

10.   Windows Live Mesh reappears displaying the newly synced folder.

 11.   Now move to your second computer and check to see that Windows Live Mesh has done as you wish.

Note: When syncing a sub-folder within My Documents folder on your second computer, the newly synced folder will be added to My Documents folder.

You have successfully synced a folder on a computer network.

Un-syncing a folder

If you want to stop synchronizing a folder in any of the networked computers or SkyDrive do the following:

1.      Click the folder to be unsynced. This shows its details.

2.      In the expanded view, click Select Devices. 

3.      The Select Devices window opens. Uncheck SkyDrive and click the Ok button. 

4.      Back in the Windows Live Mesh window when you re-select the synced folder, you’ll see SkyDrive is no longer listed in Sync On. 

Now you know about Windows Live Mesh and its features sharing files and folders is a breeze. Happy synching!

In my final article, I’ll show you how use the web storage facility, SkyDrive, another location to sync folders. In addition you’ll learn how to personalize the synced computers in a network. 

Latest Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 2 – Windows Live Mesh is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Two weeks ago Microsoft issued a security bulletin regarding  at least eight vulnerabilities affecting all versions of the Windows operating system. The company was urging Windows users to pay special attention to MS12-004, which is a “critical” bulletin that provides fixes for two serious flaws in the way Windows 7 Media PLayer handles certain media files security flaws.

New Flaws

Well, since then hackers have found new Media Player Security  flaws and are exploiting this issue to plant malware on unpatched computers. The vulnerability works when the in-the-wild attacks are launched through web sites rigged with booby-trapped Windows media files. The vulnerability occurs when Windows Multimedia Library in Windows Media Player (WMP) fails to handle a specially crafted MIDI file, this allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code.

So what happens? The end result is a malicious Trojan with rootkit capabilities infecting the computer.  The attack happens silently in the background and all the user sees is a blank WMP application playing a file. So with the Trojan in place, the attack on the computer can begin.

With a specially crafted MIDI file, the successful attacker could gain remote code execution against a target running the ubiquitous Windows Media Player.

The second critical vulnerability caused by the Media player occurs when filters in DirectShow do not properly handle media files in the way that they should.  The filter is supposed to keep out certain code, preventing it from executing. But it doesn’t do that. DirectShow is a part of Microsoft DirectX, a Windows feature used for streaming media on Windows operating systems to enable graphics and sound when playing games or watching video.

Since the media player keeps working, users do not notice anything wrong until the virus or root kit launches. Then they may not even know or suspect where the problem originated, or even what is launching the virus now.

Microsoft suggests that getting the update patch, on the original vulnerability is necessary. However, they will have to make another patch quickly.

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Microsofts Kinect has certainly been popular among consumers and hackers a like. Before Microsoft announced an official Kinect SDK, hackers had already managed to get the Kinect sensor running with Windows 7. Microsoft are now also set to release a desktop version of Kinect which will go on sale from February 1st. This sensor is slightly smaller and more accurate with close range objects.

But what if you could buy a laptop with a Kinect sensor built directly into it?

Well according to the Daily, Microsoft are looking to do just that. It’s been said that Microsoft are currently testing out the Kinect technology on Asus netbooks. They appear to be running Windows 8, probably the developer preview. They have a small array of sensors covering the top of the screen where the webcam is normally found and at the bottom of the display there seems to be a set of LEDs.

The Daily is also reporting that a source at Microsoft has also confirmed that these are in fact prototype devices that Microsoft are testing out.

It would be very interesting to see what you could do with a laptop, netbook or even tablet which had Kinect sensors built into it. Not only would it make navigating through Windows a completely new experience, but it would also interact quite well with the new Metro UI in Windows 8 I reckon. Of course since Kinect is primarily used for gaming, I’m sure that it would add to the gaming experience on these devices as well.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft announce further details on this. Since they are just about the release the desktop edition of Kinect as an accessory, they probably don’t want to hurt it’s initial sales.

The chances that we’ll get to see Kinect sensors in Windows 7 powered laptops is probably pretty slim since Windows 8 is on its way, but  you never know!

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Linux may not be dead after all. Microsoft is looking for software engineers to make Linux available on Azure, Microsoft Cloud system.

Job Requirements

“Senior Software Development Engineer/Linux Virtualization
This position requires a proven track record in the open source community.
The Windows Interoperability Team at Microsoft has an immediate opening for a senior software development engineer. The purpose of this position is to become a key member of a highly specialized development team whose mission is to identify, define, scope, implement and drive to completion software projects that promote full, transparent interoperability between Windows and Linux in Microsoft virtual and cloud environments.”

Why Linux?

Microsoft is looking to make its Azure Cloud services available to as many users as possible. While Linux consumers are a small part of the OS market, their contribution to OS design and computer stability has played a role in making other operating systems be more in tune with this system. By adding Linux to the complexity of the Cloud, it will increase the market propensity where it can become a universal system. All systems can handle the Azure cloud. That at least is the goal.

Linux Virtual Machines

Microsoft is planning to allow customers to make virtual machines (VMs) to run on Windows Azure. So Linux customers who want to run Linux without losing the data state in VMs on Microsoft’s Azure platform-as-a-service platform will be able to do so.  The problem that has been noted is that as the Linux program runs on the Cloud, if there are problems, the data disappears. This unsteady element is one that Microsoft wants to correct.

But with the new developer position, Microsoft hopes to start making inroads into some of the problems and correct them. The Linux virtual machine system, which they hope to make available, then will allow other applications to run on the cloud.

Source The Register

 Zdnet

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When you have two or more computers and you want to share important files between them there are several ways you can do this.

Method 1 & 2     Using your Wireless Connection

Providing you have a wireless connection you can use either HomeGroup or Network connections.

HomeGroup

Network

Method 3            Purchase a Belkin USB File Transfer Cable

Another way is to buy a Belkin USB Transfer Cables. This allows you to quickly transfer files from one computer to another.

The beauty of this cable setup is you can copy folders/ files from PC to PC without the need to install drivers for the operating systems. It is particularly useful for mobile users wishing to transfer files such as photos, music, videos, documents and many other files from their main computer to their laptop and vice versa. Once you make the connection it is a simple drag-and-drop operation.

Despite the high-speed transfers this equipment provides, it is a pain to have to do this if you have two or more computers as I do. So this takes me to the next option – Windows Live Mesh.

Belkin USB Transfer Cable

Method 4            Using Windows Live Mesh

This in my opinion is the most efficient way of keeping all your computers up-to-date. When you make changes to files in a Synched folder on the main computer the file is automatically updated in the target computer(s).

Windows Live Mesh in Action

A Brief History of Windows Live Mesh

Curious about its origins I checked it out in Wikipedia. This is a brief summary of the developmental history of Windows Live Mesh.

• November 3, 2005 – Microsoft bought FolderShare from ByteTaxi Inc. on, making it part of their new Windows Live feature.
• March 10, 2008 – Microsoft released its updated version renaming it Windows Live FolderShare.
•  April 23, 2008 – Microsoft released the Live Mesh technology preview. The data synchronization system allowed files, folders and other data to be shared and synchronized across PCs and up to 5 GB on the web.

Note: The Live Mesh software was made available for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and other platforms. It included a cloud storage component, called Live Desktop, an online storage service, allowing synchronized folders to be accessible via a website.

• June 24, 2010 – Microsoft released a beta version Windows Live Sync “Wave 4″.
• August 17, 2010, – August 29, 2010, after some more updates, the service was officially re-branded, Windows Live Mesh. The cloud-based SkyDrive synced storage was increased to 5 GB.
• September 30, 2010 – The final version of Windows Live Mesh 2011 (Wave 4) was released on as part of Windows Live Essentials 2011.

 Installing Windows Live Mesh

1. As Windows Live Mesh is part of the Windows Live Essentials package you need to go to this Microsoft website: www.explorelive.com/windows-live-essentails
2. When the website opens look for the small box labelled “Get Windows Live Essentials and select “Download now”.
3. Select Run.
4. Your UAC will most likely intervene, select Ok.
5. In the “What do you want to install” window choose which components you want. Check Windows Live Mesh and select Install.
6. When the installation is complete in the “Done!” box, click Close.
7. In your All Programs menu you will find Windows Live listed. Select it. pic 7

 Note: If you are using Windows 8 Preview Windows, Windows Live Mesh will be featured on the Metro menu.

Note:  If you are running Windows 7 or earlier you will find it listed within Windows Live Essentials under All Programs.

Tip! Windows 8 Preview

In the Metro menu, right-click on Windows Live Mesh’s button and in the lower section of the Metro screen select Advanced button. When the pop-up menu appears, choose Pin to the Taskbar. In future when you want to use it click this icon on the Taskbar.

Tip! Windows 7

For easy access to Windows Live Mesh, open All Programs menu, select Windows Live Essentials and in the sub-menu right-click on Windows Live Mesh and in the pop-up menu choose, Pin to Taskbar. In future when you want to use it click this icon on the Taskbar.

In my next article I’ll deal with setting up Windows Live Mesh with my other networked computers and saving data on Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 1 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Nokia has released its quarterly reports for Q4 2011 and it’s quite a mixed bag. While Nokia did post a net loss of $1.4 billion on revenues of over $13 billion, the company does have hopes that it can turn its downward momentum in the smartphone industry with their newly adopted platform, Windows Phone.

The Finnish mobile manufacturer announced that they have sold well over one million Windows Phone handsets in just only two months of availability. This is quite good when you consider that this is a new product running a new mobile OS. Nokia also only released two devices with spotted availability in only Europe with wider adoption coming in 2012.

Nokia’s hope relies on Windows Phones and whether people begin adopting the platform en masse. Nokia recently announced the Nokia Lumia 900 flagship phone which will be exclusive to AT&T for its initial launch, but is said to be widely available later this year. Nokia has also committed to a huge marketing push in both Europe and especially the US where they will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to back the platform.

As Nokia’s devices become available in more and more countries as we move through 2012 and as they make a push back into the US market we should see steady numbers rising for the struggling mobile company. Nokia has already injected some life into the marketshare for Windows Phone and things seem only to be looking up from here.

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Google has finally decided to stop ignoring Windows Phone on two key issues: Multiple Calendar Sync & Search (Previously, Windows Phone users had to resort to workarounds to achieve syncing multiple calendars to their device). Today, Google posted, via Google+, that they have fixed these two problematic issues for Windows Phone users:

We launched a few new features on Google Sync for our Windows Phone (7.5+) users. Multiple Calendars is a feature that lets you select which of your Google Calendars are synced to your device. Just navigate to m.google.com/sync on your phone’s browser and configure the calendars you would like to see. From that page, you can also configure which addresses you send mail as if you have custom addresses in Gmail. We’ve also improved search to look beyond the conversations that are stored locally on your device so that you are able to find more of your conversations, faster.

For a step-by-step guide on enabling multiple Google calendar support, click here.

Google also addressed the ability to choose which address you send as if you have custom Gmail email addresses using m.google.com/sync and the ability to search server-side email. Maybe they are warming up to Microsoft’s underdog OS, probably not.

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I’m sure many of you are familiar with the features in most browsers which let you reopen tabs that you may have accidentally closed. However such a feature doesn’t exist in Windows 7 for reopening programs and windows that you may have accidentally closed. UndoClose is a great little application that will add that feature to Windows 7 for you.

This great little program is from Addictive Tips and logs all the programs that you’ve closed on your computer. And then it’s got hotkeys assigned that lets you reopen these windows, in the same order that you closed them. It runs in the background the whole time and uses 35 MB of memory, but if you’re running a large number of apps and folders this will increase so it’s worth taking that into account.

The program also knows to distinguish between explorer windows and actual program windows. It’s got two different hot keys for restoring the two different types of windows

Ctrl + Shift + F = Reopen folders
Ctrl + Shift + P = Reopen programs

This really is a very handy little program, the only drawback with it is that it can’t distinguish between different windows within a program. For example if you have you IM client running and have a few different chat windows open, it will only be able to identify the main IM clients window and not the extra chat ones.

All in all it’s a nifty little program and if you’ve got a high powered machine and aren’t worried about using up a tiny bit more memory I think it’s well worth having.

You can see a detailed video explaining how to use it below as well as the download link

You can download it here

Source:

Addictive tips

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Using a mobile phone is one of the most unique technological experiences ever invented. And one of the most important parts of the smartphone experience is being up to date with information. For that Microsoft’s MSN mobile has been redesigned to keep you informed, entertained, and up to date regardless of where you are.

Want news? You can now check top news and entertainment stories more quickly when you’re on the go with our latest release of MSN Mobile.

Want photos or videos? Just scan MSN videos, photo galleries and lifestyle content, right from the MSN Mobile home page.

Want a stock quote? Or are you curious about the score of tonight’s game? Then swipe down to see the updated modules.

Want new apps? Well they are available too. MSN Mobile lets you stay on top of things whether at home or traveling. You are in the know.

Easy navigation

Getting to your interests is easy and convenient. Just glancing at them you can see the subjects.

Watching Videos and Reading Articles

MSN Mobile has optimized videos, articles and photo galleries to display them on your mobile device. Just tap an article from our entertainment or lifestyle channels and it will display the mobile optimized version. Videos will play in both portrait and landscape mode. So if you want a larger view, hold the phone sideways to get the full picture.

Money and Quotes

How is Wall Street doing? Is it up or down? To find out scroll down to the new Money & Quotes section and you’ll see the top market info displayed with the news.

Active – updates

Since consumers are expecting the latest apps, info, or technology, the MSN mobile is bringing that operational philosophy into view. So keep that in mind when you are searching for the information you want to have handy and available on your mobile phone.

How do you get the update?

Getting the updated site on your smartphone is easy, just type msn.com in your browser this will get you to MSN Mobile.

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A lot is going on with Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 8, which is expected to be released sometime this year. Now there is also talk about Microsoft’s new OS version for their next installment of Windows Phone. Call it Windows Phone 8, or Apollo as it is called in Redmond. In it, the rumor is that Windows Phone OS will make a swap out to the new variant of Windows 8.

Problems with Windows Phone 7 Kernel

One of the biggest overall complaints about Windows Phone, starting with Windows Phone 7 and continuing through NoDo and Mango, is the lack of 3rd-party native mode application support. Developers have problems because they do not wants to embed Windows CE’s idiosyncrasies in new apps. Again some of that is reliability and some is a desire to make apps portable across the three-screens (PC, Phone, TV) and a cloud world.  So by moving to WinNTk this eliminates the CE idiosyncrasy problem and makes native mode applications (and particularly WinRT-based ones) possible.

Three other issues also play into having one operating system for the devices. One is that when you do the same things twice (a computer operating system and a smartphone operating system) it is almost impossible to have them both be completed at approximately the same time, and  be truly compatible with one another, and also be of equivalent quality. Secondly, the cost of staffing to repeatedly do the same thing twice is nonsense, even for a company the size of Microsoft. And finally, the closer you get to wanting two things to be almost the same provides less the justification for having two different things at all!

RedHawk

So developers want better integration with the Kernel. Or so it seems. So Microsoft has come out with Redhawk. It is a new managed-code execution environment that would be more lightweight and more appealing to developers who have been put off by the perceived overhead of the current Common Language Runtime (CLR) at the heart of the .Net Framework.

That said, it appears that Microsoft is making changes in more ways than one, and is certainly trying to streamline it OS kernel to make it a more compatible development environment. The challenge for Microsoft is that as a descendant of Windows 7, Windows 8 must be as good as if not better, and Windows Phone 8 should be a lot better in order to increase the Microsoft market share in the smartphone arena.

Source: Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8: Cousins or Siblings

Zdnet

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Android 4.0 is the most recent operating system from Google that’s been dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s a slick looking UI that’s becoming quite popular on tablets as of late. Well Flickr user David Molina wanted to bring the beauty of Ice Cream Sandwich to his desktop. So he set about tweaking a few things and downloading a few bits. The final result is a very Ice Cream Sandwichy looking desktop as seen below

Unfortunately it’s not that straight forward a process. It’s not as simple as downloading and installing a Windows 7 theme. Instead you’ll have to download and set up the following wallpapers, fonts and applications

• The Ice Cream Sandwich wallpaper from WallBase
• The APPOWS2010 theme for Windows 7 from DeviantArt to tweak the taskbar
• RocketDock with a blank theme to create the dock on the left side
• The Ice Cream Sandwich Icon Pack from DroidPirate
• The Rainmeter system monitor and configuration tool for Windows
• The Minimal Bar skin for Rainmeter to display the time and date
• The Lexis skin for Rainmeter to display the weather
• Simplesentencethree for Rainmeter for the currently playing music display in the lower-right corner
• The Google Search Bar for Rainmeter
• The Roboto Font (specifically Roboto Light)

(Thanks to lifehacker for putting together that list)

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We’ve heard about the recent attempts by the US Congress to pass legislation regarding downloads. It seems that the legislation is on hold after an outcry that surprised most Congressional leaders. One of the larger issues involved is privacy because, users expect a certain amount of privacy while they surf the net. And going to websites for download purposes would expose that user. In a larger sense, privacy also involves data protection and application protection. In that vein, Microsoft has recently been involved with this issue.

Data Privacy Day

On January 28, Data Privacy Day will be celebrated. This is an international holiday with the purpose to raise awareness and promote privacy education. The National Cyber Security Alliance is coordinating and promoting the event within the United States and Canada. Given some of the recent events, involving Anonymous and potential Congressional legislation it is good to harken back and look at the environment. At the event Microsoft speakers will be addressing Microsoft’s Tracking Protection software.

Tracking Protection

Tracking Protection lets you filter out content in a page that may have an impact on your privacy. As you know, many webpages include content from other (third-party) websites. This program helps you identify different types of content.

How it Works

When content is loaded from a third-party site, standard information, including your IP address and the address of the webpage you’re viewing is sent to each of the third-parties that have content in the page you’re viewing. If the website you’re visiting has a business relationship with the third party, then more information about you may be sent. Then over time, these third parties can build a profile of your browsing history by using “cookies” and other techniques.

But now, you can filter out content from any website by using Tracking Protection Lists. So, you can have “Do Not Call” lists for content. When you add a Tracking Protection List, Internet Explorer will prevent your information from being sent by limiting data requests to websites in the list.

Tracking Protection and Do not track

Tracking protection is not the same as do not track. They are complimentary. The most important difference is that the Do Not Track protocol is an honor system. When a consumer attaches a “do not track” imperative, they hope that sites will honor their request to contain tracking. But this is an ongoing issue. Because what sites must do to in order to honor that request is still under discussion. Also, it is not clear who is to monitor and enforces that, and how. There is a sort of honor’s pledge that sites make, but it is not enforceable. Consequently for some people that that’s not enough. That being the case, if an honor system can’t resolve the issue, then perhaps put the focus on the consumer to derail any information from being perpetrated. That said, that is why Microsoft is advancing Tracking Protection. Microsoft’s trusted data tracking protection only works with IE9.

The Tracking Protection Working Group Charter

Tracking Protection is now a standard under development at the W3C and the momentum over the last year has been encouraging. Indeed, according to Microsoft, when they released IE9, there were only five tracking protection lists available. However, several months later, there are over twenty lists worldwide from six different groups.

One group, EasyList is an open community effort to help filter unwanted content. It is available as a Tracking Protection List. They have had over 250,000 subscriptions to their list.

Another list comes from TRUSTe who is one of four preferred providers of TPLs used for the new IE9 Tracking Protection feature. Their Data Collection is a new program for ad and data companies that collect consumer data on other company websites or use data collected to show more relevant ads. This program certifies the notice, choice, and privacy practices around data collection and usage.

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In the run up to Barack Obama’s annual State of the Union Address to the US congress the official White House web site has put a video online where the Senior Advisor to the President, David Plouffe talks about it and explains the process behind it.  NeoWin however have spotted an interesting process taking place behind him with the default Windows XP screensaver logo appearing on his computer monitor.

So why is this important and why should we care?  We all know that the business that goes on within the White House is some of the most important and secret to take place anywhere in the world, and that there are classified documents on the computers of the White House and the Pentagon covering all manner of subjects that the world should probably never see (wikileaks and other public interest aside obviously).

We also know though not only that Windows XP is very close now to the end of all support, it is already out of mainstream support so will no longer be updated with service packs and updates, but in two years it will be out of all security support altogether.  It is also the most insecure version of Windows currently still in use.  Not only because of a complete lack of User Account Control or any Unix-type security, but because of the default web browser, Internet Explorer 6, which both Microsoft and major web giants have been trying to kill for years.

It matters then that major security and governmental establishments shouldn’t be using something as insecure as this and that they should be moving to either a more up to date version of Windows, such as Windows 7 which is considered by some security experts to be at least as secure as Mac OS X, if not more so, or to a different and more secure operating system altogether.

I’ll let you decide how important you think this is but NeoWin cite a Gartner group reports from late last year which said…

With support for Windows XP ending in April 2014, we believe it would be dangerous for organizations now running XP to attempt to skip Windows 7 and move directly to Windows 8. Organizations running Windows XP and working on Windows 7 migrations: Continue as planned; do not switch to Windows 8.

We can only hope the White House is already migrating to Windows 7 and that they don’t leave it too long to make the change completely.

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Well that was quick. AT&T hasn’t even gotten their hands on their exclusive “Hero device” (Nokia Lumia 900) and others are already advertising its availability, in June no less. Of course, this should come as no surprise as we’ve previously heard that the exclusivity for the device on AT&T might only last around 45 days.

The word comes from the UK  online mobile store, Carphone Warehouse, that they are expecting the device to be available in June 2012, although, there is a disclaimer that the “Expected date is subject to change without notice.” Carphone Warehouse even has a huge landing page for the 900 which runs through the highlights and specs for the highly anticipated device.

Users who would like to be notified when the device becomes available can now pre-register by providing their contact information via a form at their site. Good news for our overseas friends who were worried they wouldn’t get the new Nokia flagship handset.

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The Enterprise Rocks Microsoft. That’s the story. Sure the Cloud, Xbox, Kinect, and Windows Phone 7 are getting attention and publicity. Windows 8 will be launching this year. But what Microsoft is basing its success is on Enterprise support.

Microsoft is IBM

Microsoft is IBM; it is the international business machine company. How is that possible? Consider this

• Microsoft had good cost discipline.
• The company has a well-rounded product line-up: Software, entertainment, business, scientific, programming languages, and applications.
• Its enterprise businesses are chugging along.
• Kinect is making an impact on the entertainment and device division.
• Corporations continue to upgrade to Windows 7.
• The Cloud service and Office 365 is growing.
• It has data-centers in different parts of the world, like

East Asia – Hong Kong
South East Asia – Singapore
North-central US – Chicago, IL
South-central US – San Antonio, TX
North Europe – Amsterdam, Netherlands
West Europe – Dublin, Ireland

Enterprise Facts

Microsoft may have been an OS and Applications company, but it has done a lot more. Consider the following:

• Six quarters since launch, Office 2010 upgrade continue.
• Microsoft had double-digit revenue growth for Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and Dynamics CRM.
• Office 365 has 100,000 businesses in the fold.
• Windows Server Premium and System Center had double digit revenue growth quarters.
• Microsoft’s Lync unified communications platform continues to gain steam.
• Windows Server 8, SQL Server 2012 and System Center 2012 are on tap to launch.

Microsoft may not look “cool,” but businesses like sound operations. That is “cool.”

As a business systems provider, it has done a lot with the software concepts, some its own, others borrowed from others and this made Microsoft the top computer company in the world. Yes, Apple may have flashier programs and a coven of followers that march to the Apple tune, but at the business level, Microsoft still carries the day. That’s why it is the International Business Machine. That is why Microsoft is IBM.

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Office 365 continues to grow in business circles. According to Microsoft over 90 percent of their Office 365 customers have less than 50 employees. Now a new group of companies  have entered into the Azure/Office 365 fold. These are JetBlue, Patagonia, and the American Heart Association. This adds to the existing stack of companies like Campbell Soup Company, Marie Claire, Roush Enterprises, Hersing Corp, UL (formerly Underwriters Labs), and Wunderman. So there are small companies and large companies that have accepted this product. And it shows that the productivity suite can fit the needs of any size business.

Patagonia

Why did Patagonia, a leading provider of outdoor gear, move to using Office 365? Answer: to make real-time communications and decision making possible throughout its organization; plus the cost savings made an impact.

Here’s how.

Patagonia expects to save $300,000 in future upgrades and infrastructure improvements, and $15,000 a year in savings by moving to the cloud-based e-mail system that is part of Office 365.

There is also the green effect. Patagonia has a program called “drive-less” meaning that they encourage employees to work from home in order to reduce their carbon footprint. Office 365 supports the company’s “drive-less” program, so it is a win-win situation.

Updates

Last year, Microsoft pushed out 30 updates on the Office 365 suite to make it even more user friendly. These included support for Lync for Mac, SharePoint Business Connectivity Services, support for Windows Phone 7.5, and making SkyDrive simpler to use with app-centric sharing for Office.

The updates are beginning to resonate on the market, making an impression on IT managers who are pushing out to enterprise management as a viable alternative to purchasing new equipment and software.

Earlier I wrote about Azure and making the connection as Microsoft’s new OS. Obviously, Azure will not replace Windows 7 or Windows 8. But it is a way of using the computer with connection to the cloud, in a different way. It is a system that lets companies operate in a new way; allowing customers and enterprises to perform their own operations in their unique style and brand.

Source: Microsoft blog

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In case you missed it, CES concluded over a week ago and aside from the “momentum” keynotes by Microsoft and the announcement of the Lumia 900 from Nokia, there wasn’t too much to get excited about. Unless, that is, you were there and took on Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph (aka Ben the PC Guy) in a smartphone task challenge that he dubbed ”Smoked by Windows Phone.” In this challenge, Rudolph invited users with other smartphone to come and challenge his Windows Phone (HTC Titan) in a speed test at various smartphone tasks. If the user won, they would receive $100 for their efforts, but if they lost, they would have to declare, on camera, that they were “Smoked by Windows Phone.”

Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph has posted the final cut of the “Smoked By Windows Phone” competition that was held during CES 2012. The total record when everything was tallied for Windows Phone was 30-3-1, which is definitely not too shabby. Does this prove that Microsoft’s mobile OS is by far the fastest smartphone platform out there? I’ll let you guys decide. Check out the video below to see how things went:

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We do not know a lot yet about the operating system after Windows 8. Heck, we even do not know if it will be named Windows 9 or if Microsoft will give it a different name. Everything is possible at this point in time.

A leaked roadmap suggests that we might be able to play around with the next but one Windows earlier than everyone thought. The roadmap suggests that we may see a developer preview of Windows 9 at the Build 2013 conference which should takes place in the middle of the year.

The developer preview is then followed by the first Windows 9 Beta release during the January CES 2014 and a release candidate release during the MIX 2014 conference in April. The Windows 9 RTM would then be released during Build 2014 along with Internet Explorer 12.

The final version of Windows 9 will be released in November 2014 along with Windows 9 Mobile and Kinect HP2. Microsoft would release another operating system only two years after the release of Windows 8, which is expected to be released in August 2012.

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For over 4 years we’ve covered the development of Windows 7, and now Windows 8.  It may seem a bit premature to start thinking about Windows 9, but we can assure you Microsoft aren’t and they are already working on this release, even though Windows 8 hasn’t been released yet.

Some details about Windows 9 have been released.  Over on Windows 7 News & Tips, Mike has tried to pull together what we know about Windows 9 so far.  Below you can read a summary of his post.

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x64 only

Back before even Windows 7 was launched Microsoft announced that its successor, Windows 8, would be the very last version of Windows to support the old 32-bit architecture.  It was very important that Microsoft made this announcement then.  This then gave businesses a six year warning that they’d have to redevelop their ageing legacy software to work with a 64-bit operating system.  It also warned software developers that they had just six years left to make sure all of their software, plug-ins and Windows extensions would be 64-bit; probably the most high profile example being Adobe’s Flash player which is only just appearing in a 64-bit beta despite Internet Explorer having gone 64-bit with Windows Vista in 2006.

Possibility: All modern hardware has now been 64-bit for about three years now so there’s no need for hardware manufacturers to catch up.  However this will put added pressure on hardware vendors and software companies to run their code through Microsoft certification programmes, as the move to 64-bit may force all unsigned code off the platform (Note: this may happen with Windows 8 )

Legacy Support will be Dropped

Again it is a possibility that this will happen with Windows 8, but the move to a completely x64 operating system will mean that there will be absolutely no need for any legacy support within the operating system anyway.  This will be because none of the legacy apps, drivers and plug-ins that exist today; which all run on 32-bit architecture, will run on a 64-bit only platform.  The move will be towards sandboxed virtualisation.  I say sandboxed as Windows XP will be completely out of support before Windows 9 goes on sale, and Microsoft will need to reassure business and consumers alike that running legacy code in a virtual machine will be safe and secure.

One OS to run them all

Okay, so Lord of the Rings jokes aside, it was announced at the Worldwide Partner Conference that Microsoft want to move all of their systems to a unified operating system.  This is what Apple have done with iOS on the iPhone and iPad being a set of extensions on top of the core OS X kernel.  It makes sense too and we, again, may see some of this with Windows 8 as back in January this year, the CEO of Intel commented that his company would be shipping Windows 8 on smartphones.

When Microsoft were developing Windows Vista they did away with the old OS kernel from XP and instead replaced it with the core kernel from Windows Server 2003.  To this day both the desktop and server versions of Windows run the same core kernel, and this move has proved spectacularly successful for Microsoft.  Windows 7 is widely acknowledged to be one of the most secure operating systems available today (ongoing issues with legacy support not withstanding).

A unified Interface

Again this was announced at the WPC.  It makes some sense for Microsoft to move all their devices, where possible, to a perhaps not unified, but certainly standardised interface.  This isn’t always possible or a good idea.  For instance the addition of Launchpad in OS X Lion, which  arranges your icons in a grid pattern on the screen in the same way they appear on the iPad.  While a nice idea in principle, it’s been criticised for spacing the icons too far apart on the desktop, making excessive mouse movements required for launching them.  According to many people it’s a poor alternative to OS X’s current dock.

If you can standardise some elements across your platforms though then you can help people move seamlessly from one to another.  Nobody is ever going to argue though that tablet interfaces will work on the desktop or vice versa, Windows 7 on tablets is the finest example of this.

In all, Windows 9, when it appears in 2015 will be a significant departure for Microsoft and probably the most exciting version of Windows ever.  That said it will also cause businesses, software companies and hardware vendors significant headaches if they don’t start work on 64-bit versions of their products very soon.

It is still possible that some of this functionality, even perhaps in more limited forms will appear with Windows 8.  It’s unlikely though that we’ll see a full scale move to a legacy free future this time around.  Microsoft simply don’t work that way and businesses would be up in arms if not given enough notice.  Stranger things have happened before at Redmond though.

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Dedicated to bringing you all the news & rumours about Microsoft’s new operating system Windows 9, which is being developed at the same time as Windows 8, which will replace Windows 7 in 2012.  Windows 9 isn’t expected to be ready until 2015 so we’ll have a lot of time to track its development!

To keep up with the news on Windows 9 as it happens then subscribe to the RSS feed for this site.  You may also want to:

• Join our forum to talk with other readers
• Visit Windows 7 News or Windows 8 News

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