Archive for August 12th, 2009

Green & Clean Windows 7


Technology has covered every aspect of our lives. While we are trying to focus on our environment, it will be unfair and unintelligent of us to exclude the device that touches our lives so closely and can contribute to a Greener environment: The Personal Computer.

Here is some food for thought:

1. The average computers idle time consumes 69 to 97 percent of its total energy use.

2. With the computer turned on and all peripherals activated, the system consumed an average of 171 watts which is equivalent to having thirteen 13 watt CFL powered lamps turned on.

In our existing environmental situation, PCs can contribute a lot with the degree of penetration that these devices have, even in developing countries. While there is constant focus amongst hardware manufacturers to produce devices that consume less electricity, it is also the responsibility of Software vendors to provide interface to users to save power consumption.

This is one of the aspects that Microsoft has attempted to address with Windows 7. Microsoft has claimed that Windows 7 will provide better power management capabilities than Windows Vista or XP. Windows 7 will manage standby and hibernate modes more efficiently, which is not such a stable feature in Vista or XP. This will allow users to utilize these functions of the Operating System and save both power and environment. This would also tranlate to better battery time for Laptop Users.

Good Job Microsoft. Keep working on the environment while the cash registers keep ringing.

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Tags: environment, Green, Microsoft, Windows 7

Microsoft Windows 7 vs Apple Snow Leopard OS X


Microsoft and Apple have been locking their horns more often now. With Apple gaining more share of the computing world consistently (though no where close to PC) it is imperative for users to understand the degree of technological change that each is offering to end user.

64 Bit & 32 Bit Systems
While Microsoft and Apple both provide support for their proprietary applications for both 32 & 64 bit platforms, Microsoft offers different variants of applications and OS for supporting 64 bit systems. 64 bit systems are more secure by providing security at hardware level and provide fast performance to users. Mac has worked extensively towards reducing the gap between the 2. Their new OS Snow Leopard is 64 Bit and is backward compatible with 32 bit applications. This is quite an achievement considering that Microsoft, even after the setback from Vista has not made any effort to bridge the gap between users of 32 bit & 64 bit Operating Systems. This makes Windows 7 look like just another update to Windows Vista and considerable under hood technology enhancements by Apple.

Utilization of Multi Core processors

While Microsoft has not made substantial changes to the way their Operating System utilizes multi-core processors, Apple has doen a tremendous job of providing application developers a tool “Grand Central Dispatch” which can be used by developers to create applications that can utilize multi core prcessor capabilities to deliver enhanced performance. Maybe Microsoft has already achieved this is yet to be discovered with Snow Leopard slated for launch in Mid September, a month before retail launch of Windows 7.

Graphics and Video

Both Microsoft & Apple have invested substantially in this area. Windows 7 will come with enhanced graphics support with greater desktop responsiveness. Compared to this, Apple will introduce Open CL (Open Computing Language), which is a C-Based language that will be familiar to programmers who can use the code to develop applications that work closely with OpenCL. They will only need to rewrite the performance intensive parts to deliver better application performance.

  
Other than these comparisons, there are other enhancements that Apple will introduce with Snow Leopard OSX. One of the noted changes will be native support for Exchange Server. For people familiar with Outlook 2007, there will be a similar functionality in Snow Leopard. Just enter the domain, username and password and you will get connected to the server on the Apple platform. You can then continue to use Mail, iCal and Address Book to utilize the capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server.

In my opinion, Apple has come out with lot of technological changes as compared to Microsoft. Apple will transform computing experience to a new dimension through Snow Leopard, unlike Microsoft’s Windows 7 that appears like a “Service Pack” for Windows Vista with lot of user level changes.

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Tags: Apple, macintosh, Microsoft, OS X, Snow Leopard, Windows 7

Windows 7: Security Features

Microsoft has constantly evolved its Operating Systems to tackle the security risk in evergrowing internet and computing environment. Eversince Blaster virus hit Windows XP, security has become a key concern for Microsoft. With Windows 7, Microsoft has integrated state of the art tools that allow users & administrators to manage their computers more effectively, preventing data/identity theft. They have added features and enhanced some existing features to achieve this. Following is a list of some very interesting capabilities that Microsoft has bundled with Windows 7:

1. APPLOCKER

This is an application control policy that allows administrators to specify exactly what can be used on the computer. Till now, we had only “Content Advisor” in Internet Explorer to prevent kids from getting access to content that they are not meant to see. But imagine locking down the computer to a level where kids can only access ceratain applications that you specify. For a corporate environment, IT admins can specify what their users/employees can or cannot do. This takes security to a new dimension in domestic and corporate computing environment.

2. Bitlocker & Bitlocker to Go

Though Bitlocker was an active feature in Windows Vista, Bitlocker to Go is a new feature that extends security for removable media such as external hard drives and USB disks. With Bitlocker to Go, adminstrators can enforce setting up this feature on any removable media before any data is saved/copied to such devices. In a domain setup, policies have been introduced for password recovery, etc, making this very user friendly. Bitlocker is now easier to enforce through Windows 7 by just a right click.

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Tags: Applocker, Bitlocker, Microsoft, Security, Windows 7

USB Computer: Carry your PC in your Pocket

Laptops, Notebooks and Tablets revolutionalized the global IT industry by providing Operating Systems, applications and data on the move. Highly scalable and robust technology further enhanced their utility. However, gone are the days of hardware dependency. These solutions were great only till penetration of devices was extremely low. With high degree of penetration there is further focus on making a user’s pc available at any place and should be small enough to fit into a pocket.

logoThere are 2 options for users in this space: MojoPack and Ceedo.logo Both are offering a completely customized application that you can carry on your USB drive. Yes…. a USB Drive. All you need to access your data, applications or even games is connect to a Desktop, Laptop or Tablet (host system). This is completely indipendent of the host system and is not likely to get infected with virus/spyware,etc.

This provides next generation experience to users by making their application usage hardware and OS indipendent. Though Mojopac currently works on Windows XP, Ceedo claims to work with Windows XP, Vista and 2000.

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Tags: Laptops, Notebooks, Pocket PC, USB

Windows XP to Windows 7: Upgrade Woes

Microsoft has announced that its most widely used Operating System, Windows XP, will not be a valid upgrade path for upgrading to Windows7. As of June 2009, over 60% of global Deskop / Laptop PC users are using a version of Windows XP, leave alone the countless large and small businesses which are still using Windows XP.

If a Windows XP user wants to install Windows 7, he/she will either have to do a clean installation (Which means all data has to be backed up and restored along with all existing applications) or create a dual boot between Windows XP and Windows 7. Microsoft has also mentioned that some applications that used to run with Windows XP may not have native support in Windows 7. They have provided a “Windows XP Virtualization” in Windows 7 that will have to be used in such a case.
With this, Microsoft has seemingly ignored millions of users who did not upgrade to Windows Vista due to its bad reviews. I think Microsoft should provide an upgrade path in the retail release slated for October 22, 2009.
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Tags: Microsoft, Upgrade, Window 7, Windows 7, XP

Alienware: Mean Gaming Machine


laptop_alienware_m17x_redAlienware: This is one name that all PC Gamers can relate to. Alienware has been consistently delivering high end gaming systems (Both Desktops and Laptops). They are recognized for delivering state of the art liquid cooling systems to cool off the heat generated by high end CPUs and GPUs.

The latest in the line is Alienware M17x Laptop. This has been deemed the most powerful gaming machine ever built. Usually the gaming machines have been known to be not great looking. This machine is different though. It packs enough power and yet is designed to drop jaws if you open it in public.

With Intel Quadcore Technology’s processing power and exploiting NVIDIA SLI graphic interface, this is one mean machine. With Binary GFX technology, it allows users to turn off discrete graphic cards and reduce power consumption by other computer components. It is equipped with 1333 DDR3 memory to provide faster speed and higher bandwidth to extreme gamers.

To top it all, they have incorporated high end biometric identification to deter theft of the laptop. The laptop uses integrated webcam to identify the owner and is capable to read various facial expressions.

The laptop also uses touch sensitive control pads to access power and volume controls. You also get a personalized plaque under the laptop which will be completely unique.

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Tags: Alienware, Gaming, Laptop, PC

Microsoft Windows 7 on Apple Mac

Apple is knows for constant innovation and evloution. Moving from proprietary “in-box” processor to Intel based processors was a great move for Apple. Exploiting the capabilities of Intel processors, Apple has provisioned for using Microsoft Windows Operating System alongside the Mac OSX. Though this may not impress Apple fans, but provides an opportunity to PC users to switch to apple_microsoft_desktop2 Apple hardware.

Apple has made this possible through their revolutionary “Boot Camp” application. Boot Camp enables installation of Windows on Intel based Mac Computer using a Microsoft Windows installation CD/DVD.  Apple provides full hardware and video support for Windows XP & Windows Vista.

Since it supports Windows Vista, I thought of getting my hands on to Boot Camp to try and get Windows 7 work on Apple machine.

Apple instantly recognized the burned ISO of Windows 7 Beta and installed it like any other version of Windows. There were some issues with the drivers, but I was able to successfully get rid of the problem through the Mac OS X disc that came with the machine. Browse to Drivers folder on the disc and whola… you are done.

There were some issues with sound, which I resolved by downloading the drivers from the manufacturer site.

I haven’t yet tried using the Windows 7 64 Bit on Mac Book, but if the drivers are available, it should work too.

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Tags: Apple, Boot Camp, Mac, MacBook, macintosh, Microsoft, Windows 7

Windows 7 Beta: Unearthed


Windows 7 will allow Microsoft to come back into the Operating System world with a bang after their decent, but unsuccessful Windows Vista endeavour. My Vista experience has been more than satisfactory. It is a more stable & usable OS than Windows XP, windows7_logo1barring its nagging resource hunger and features that are better disabled. Windows 7 Beta has thoroughly impressed me over past few weeks. Microsoft has kept the goodness and resolved most of the issues with Windows Vista. The installation process was extremely convenient and unlike my initial trouble with Vista, it installed all the required drivers effortlessly. The basic OS desktop performance was exemplory with no impact on performance while installing additional software/applications, downloading files, etc. The biggest inconvenience of User Access Control that used to pop up every time I wanted to install anything on Vista has been taken care of in Windows 7 through new ACTION Centre. This also provides concentrated information of all security related information. Like in Windows Vista, Windows Defender (Microsoft’s anti-spyware utility) comes pre-installed with the OS. There are loads of other features like DirectAccess, BranchCache, Enhanced Search, Bitlocker to GO, Windows Bitlocker and Applocker. Windows 7 will surely change the game of existing computing environment, both for home & business users. With the slated launch date of October22 this will surely change the game.

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Tags: Applocker, Beta, Bitlocker, Microsoft, Vista, Windows 7