HP's Slate Teases Apple's iPad Over Flash

The reef between Apple and HP over Flash seems to be a never ending saga.

HP gave consumers a slight peak of its upcoming Slate device at the CES 2010. This touchscreen device runs on Windows 7, and has a similar form to Apples’s iPad, as well as some other similarities: It also supports eBooks, music, videos, and of course, the Internet. Though we're heard of rumors of Windows 7 to work on iPad's as well.

According to a post on HP's Voodoo blog, the Slate will give you a "full Web browsing experience," not a "watered-down Internet" with "sacrifices." Meaning that, the HP slate device supports Flash and, the iPad doesn't.

Although the post did not mention the iPad specifically we can all read between the lines, that this was a direct shot at Apple, The lack of Flash on the iPhone, and iPad, has its setbacks, these setbacks have been muted to a degree. The arrival of the App Store created a non-Flash, potentially monetizable, playground for the creations of developers and content creators to play in. Adding that HTML 5 is emerging as a potential Flash alternative.

Check out the video clip below:

LG’s Windows Phone 7 Prototype

At The Engadget Show there was a huge surprise, Microsoft's Aaron Woodman showed off Apollo, LG's Windows Phone 7 Series early prototype! Amazingly this seems to be the first look at Qwerty slider branded Windows Phone 7 Series device to be displayed.

Features:

• Launching: August/September 2010
• CPU: Qualcomm QSD8650; 1.3GHz
• CDMA + GSM (aka a World Phone)
• EvDO + HSDPA
• Device Size: 115 x 57.5 x 11.2 mm
• Memory (RAM/ROM): 1GB/1GB
• External Storage: MicroSD (up to 32GB)
• Screen Size/Type: 3.8-inch capacitive AMOLED “Multitouch Supported”
• Screen Resolution: WXGA 1280 x 720 px
• Camera: 10-megapixel with flash and autofocus; HD 720p video@ 30fps
• Video Support: Windows Media Video (WMV), MPEG-4 (MP4/M4V) H.264, DVR-MS4
• Audio Support: Windows Media Audio (WMA), Advanced Audio Coding (AAC-LC), FairPlay DRM, MP3
• Battery: Removable 1400 mAh
• Talk Time: Up to 7.5 hours
• Standby Time: 288 hours
• Internet Use: 4.5 hours (3G), 6.5 hours (WiFi)
• Video Playback: 10 hours
• Audio Playback: 30 hours

While the features are still in production stages, it offers you a sneak peak as to what to expect. It's a tad bit thicker than the iPhone or Nexus One. There are dedicated hardware camera, volume, and power buttons in addition to the back, home, and search buttons. It also comes with a five megapixel camera with a flash on the back, along with a headphone jack. There is not much comments or confirmation that can be made. Features might be different at the time of release as for now we wait and see.

Windows 7 Coming Soon To iPad

Citrix wasting no time since the announcement of iPad, has been working on launching client software enabling iPad users to connect to Citrix Server and run Windows 7 in a virtual session. This will probably reach the marketplace to coincide with the iPad's formal release in late March.

MacinBusiness today covered the iPad as a thin client:

As a thin client even the $499 model is a pretty amazing product and a pretty great value and certainly good enough from a CPU and RAM standpoint. And it’s a much better than a cheaper Windows-based netbook because the 1024 x 768 screen is actually pretty much the minimum for a good Citrix client and almost all netbooks are much lower resolution than that.

While we haven't even scratched the surface of how the iPad will be modified and morphed to serve innumerable purposes, the idea of accessing your Windows 7 computer remotely via the iPad is an appealing.
According to GeekWord, this "multi-tasking awesomeness" on the tablet will require you to have one of the two virtualization products - XenDesktop or XenApp - in your possession.

Chris Fleck, Citrix Vice President, puts it this way:

It turns out the 9.7 inch display on the iPad with a 1024×768 screen resolution works great for a full VDI XenDesktop. Windows applications run unmodified and securely in the data centre, and even multiple applications at once.

Naturally, many see this latest development as just the tip of the iceberg with regard to what could prove a flood of forthcoming announcements about iPad applications, modifications, software, accessories, etc. Many could even be significant enough to blow your mind.

Anyone else curious about MS Office 2010 for iPad?

How To Enable Check Boxes for Items In Windows 7

Would you like an easier way to select multiple files in Windows Explorer without having to hold down the “Ctrl” or “Shift” key? Today we take a look at enabling the check boxes feature which might be easier for some users to select multiple items.
I’m sure you’re familiar with selecting multiple files in Explorer by holding down the “Shift” or “Ctrl” key while selecting them with your mouse. Holding down the “Ctrl” key allows you to select multiple single items. Holding down “Shift” lets you select a series of multiple files or folders.

Enable Check Boxes
To enable check boxes, click on Start and and type Folder Options into the search box and hit Enter.

In the Folder Options window click on the View tab, and scroll down under Advanced Settings and check the box next to Use check boxes to select items, the click Apply and Ok.

Now you’ll notice a small check box shows up on next to the item you want to select. With this enabled you don’t need to hold any key on the keyboard, just click to place a checkmark in the box.

Also notice there is a box under the menu bar that will select all items.

It also works for folders…

And on the desktop you can check icons, folders, and files that you want to move to another location.

The check box feature is also available in Vista following the same procedure…enabling them in Folder Options.

This is a neat setting that lets you select multiple items using the mouse without worrying about holding down the correct key on the keyboard. It will work with any view in Explorer but seems to work best with Detailed View

More Windows 7 tips - http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-7/

Windows 7 - The Fastest Selling Operating System in History

According to Microsoft's director of marketing Craig Beilinson, 'Windows 7 is by far the fastest selling Operating System in history.' And while Beilinson doesn't offer specific numbers, we're not terribly surprised by the claim. Consider that after only having been out for a few weeks, 41% of Lifehacker readers were using Windows 7 as their main OS—a number that's likely only grown. We realize the folks who read Lifehacker are often early adopters, but it's still a mind-blowing adoption rate.

Windows 7 - God Modes

Those intrigued by the "GodMode" in Windows 7 may be interested to know that there are many other similar shortcuts hidden within the operating system.
Intended for developers as a shortcut to various internal settings, such features have been around since Vista and even before, according to the head of Microsoft's Windows division, who tells CNET that the so-called GodMode settings folder uncovered by bloggers is just one of many undocumented developer features included in Windows.

In an e-mail interview, Steven Sinofsky, Windows division president, said several similar undocumented features provide direct access to all kinds of settings, from choosing a location to managing power settings to identifying biometric sensors.
As with the all-encompassing GodMode uncovered by bloggers, these other settings can be accessed directly by creating a new folder with any name (GodMode or otherwise) and then including a certain text string. Sinofsky noted more than a dozen strings create particular settings folders, in addition to the overarching GodMode folder option.
Sinofsky and others say the term GodMode was coined by bloggers; it was not something the company used internally to refer to the settings folders. Although Microsoft maintains many such undocumented developer commands to access such settings, all are replicated by the operating system's Control Panel settings.
Such undocumented means of accessing various settings have occurred in previous versions of Windows, and the GodMode identified by bloggers was also present in Windows Vista. Some users of the 64-bit version of Vista, however, say invoking the GodMode folder caused their machines to crash. Microsoft says it has yet to reproduce that problem, though several readers have said they have encountered problems.
It seems that the folks in Redmond have gotten a kick out of all the attention that the Godmode has gotten and have decided to have fun with it. Sinofsky sent a list of other commands that also create special folders (see list below).
Given the Vista issues, though, I would try these only on a Windows 7 machine, ideally a test machine. To make it work, create a new folder with any name, then a period, then one of the text strings below.
For example, the first one could be a folder named "thankscnet.{00C6D95F-329C-409a-81D7-C46C66EA7F33}" (use everything inside quotes--but not the quotes themselves).
Here's the list of strings:
{00C6D95F-329C-409a-81D7-C46C66EA7F33}
{0142e4d0-fb7a-11dc-ba4a-000ffe7ab428}
{025A5937-A6BE-4686-A844-36FE4BEC8B6D}
{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}
{1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70}
{15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4}
{17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966}
{1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43}
{1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87}
{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
{241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}
{4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423}
{62D8ED13-C9D0-4CE8-A914-47DD628FB1B0}
{78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}
{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

What to do when your Windows 7 system misbehaves

Imagine one day you got to your desktop and realized that some programs on your machine started crashing; or you’ve noticed some degradation in your machine’s performance. You’re not so sure when this started happening or what caused it…what should you do?
Action Center is your friend
By now, you’ve probably already figured out that the Action Center is the hub in Windows 7 for finding and resolving issues related to your PC. As a first step, you should always check if there are any problem reports or solutions already available. Action Center can be accessed from the notification area on the task bar:

In addition, Action Center provides two additional options – Troubleshooting and Recovery. The first option provides the tools for diagnosing various computer problems, ranging from Aero disabled to program compatibility issues, and guide you through additional steps such as Remote Assistant if the problem could not be resolved. The second option attempts to fix the issue by restoring the machine to a previous good state. In this blog we’ll focus on the second option – Recovery.
System Restore

In the Recovery control panel, the most prominent option is System Restore. If you’re not familiar with System Restore from previous versions of Windows, it is a tool that would help you roll the state of your operating system back to an earlier point in time, known as a restore point, without affecting your personal files such as documents and pictures. There are several reasons why we recommend System Restore as the first step as oppose to other recovery options. First, it’s the least intrusive option since it rolls back only your system and application files and leaves your personal files intact. Second, if System Restore is initiated from the running OS, an “undo” restore point is created so the process can be reversed. Last but not least, the process is fast and typically takes only a few minutes to complete.
You can access System Restore even if your computer is unable to boot into the operating system. When that occurs, start your computer and hold down F8 to access the recovery option menu where System Restore will be one of the options available. However one thing you should keep in mind is that System Restore initiated from a non-bootable OS will not have the option to undo the operation, though you may be able to attempt to restore to other restore points.
What’s new in System Restore
The System Restore wizard is intuitive and look and feel largely like it was in the previous versions of Windows. In a nutshell, all you need to do is pick a point in time that you would like to roll back to, and then your computer will be restarted to complete the operation.
Even though the experience is familiar, this doesn’t mean there’s no improvement done on System Restore. In fact, here are a few great additions that would help make your system recovery experience even easier in Windows 7:
View affected programs
Ever wonder what programs or drivers might be affected by performing a restore? Now you don’t need to guess. When you select a restore point, you can see the list of programs, drivers or Windows Updates that you might gain or lose by rolling back in time. You can view this info by selecting the “Scan for affected programs” option in the wizard.


Using a system image backup as restore point
There’s always a trade-off between how far back in time one can restore to, and the amount of space required on the OS to save older copies of your data for this recovery purpose. Now here’s a new solution. In Windows 7, system images you are already creating as part of your backup to a hard disk can also be used for the purpose of System Restore. Essentially, instead of re-imaging the entire disk, System Restore will extract just the system files from the image and use it like any other restore points. This allows you to potentially roll back to a much earlier point in time, and also an option to perform a less intrusive recovery prior to completely re-imaging your machine. These system image-restore points, if available, can be found in the System Restore UI by selecting “Show more restore points”, with the restore point type indicating that it’s from a backup.
Adjusting System Protection settings in Windows 7 (advanced)
System Restore, Previous Versions and system image backups’ versioning all use the same underlying technology – System Protection (aka Volume Shadow Copies). Here we’ll show you how to adjust settings for these features using the updated System Protection page in Windows 7.


At a high level, System Protection is used to keep track of changes to your personal and system files across an entire drive, such that you can restore them to an earlier state by discarding these changes (via Previous Version and System Restore respectively). The checkpoints that you can roll back to, call restore points, are created during application and driver installations, Windows Update, and at regular intervals if one has not been created in the last 7 days. They can also be created on demand from the System Protection page.
System Protection is turned on by default for the OS drive, but can also be turned on for any additional drives formatted NTFS and greater than 1GB. By default, protection is set to maximum by providing both Previous Version and System Restore capabilities. In Windows 7, however, there’s a new System Protection option “Only restore previous versions of files”. As mentioned earlier, System Restore is designed to bring your system back to an earlier state without affecting your personal files. However, if you are a programmer or system administrator who store programs or scripts on your computer, these files might be undesirably rolled back by System Restore due to their executable nature. By storing these files in a separate data drive and selecting this option, you’ll be able to enjoy Previous Versions protections of such files, but at the same time not having to worry about these files being accidentally rolled back by System Restore. You should not select this option for the OS drive.
For drives 64GB or smaller, a maximum of 3% drive space will be allocated by default for System Protection. For drives greater than 64GB, 5% will be allocated, with a cap at 10GB. You can adjust these settings by selecting the appropriate drive and changing the maximum usage slider. As space runs out, older restore points will be deleted to make room for new ones. Therefore a larger setting will allow more space to be used for storing restore points, which means the ability to restore further back in time. However this also means that less space will be available for other storage purposes on that drive, so it is a tradeoff that needs to be taken into consideration. Similarly, Windows by default allocates a maximum of 30% of disk space on the backup target drive for storing older versions of the system images. This value can be adjusted by using this same control.
The System Protection page also provides the ability to delete all restore points. Note that selecting this option will delete ALL data stored under the system protection storage area, including restore points for System Restore and Previous Versions; earlier versions of system image backups, or any shadow copies created by 3^rd party applications. New restore points will continue to be created unless you turn off system protection entirely. Since System Protection storage has an automatic space management policy, and it can never grow beyond the allocated maximum value, we do not encourage using this functionality if your only motivation is to conserve space.

Install Windows 7 from a USB Flash Drive

Format USB flash drive to NTFS format

(For Win XP only. Vista users can directly format the USB drive to NTFS format) In your Windows, go to Control panel -> system -> hardware -> Device manager.
Under the disk drives section, right click on the USB storage drive and select Properties.

Go to the Policies tab, select optimize for performance. Click OK.

Open your Windows Explorer, you should see the USB storage drive in the inventory. Right click and select Format. Select NTFS from the drop down bar. Click Start.

For Windows XP,
Download MBRWizard. Extract the zipped files to your desktop.
Open a command prompt (Start –> Program –> Accessories –> Command Prompt).

cd Desktop/MBRWiz2.0/
MBRWiz /list

Record the USB flash drive disk number

Make the USB drive active.

mbrwiz /disk=X /active=1

For Windows Vista,
On the Start menu, navigate to the command prompt entry. Right-click and select Run as administrator.

Type

diskpart
list disk

Record the disk number of your USB flash drive.

Select the USB disk.

select disk X (X is the drive number of the USB flash drive)

List the current partition. Record the partition number.

list partition

Select the current partition and make it active.

select partition Y (Y is the partition number of the USB flash drive)
active

Creating bootable USB flash drive

Download Windows 7 iso
(32-bit) file to your desktop (The download link is no longer valid).
Download and install WinRAR.
Right-click on the Windows 7 iso file and select Extract files. Extract the files to a folder (you can name the folder any name you want, but for illustration purpose, I name it win-7) in your desktop.

In your command prompt, cd to the windows 7 folder.

cd Desktop/win-7 (Change the destination to the folder that you have extracted)
cd boot
bootsect /nt60 X: (X is the drive latter of your USB drive )

Now, copy all the files from the Windows 7 folder to the USB flash drive.
Reboot the computer. Remember to change the first boot device to your USB drive in the BIOS.
You should be able to install Windows 7 from your USB flash drive now.

The 10 most useful Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts

Along with Windows 7’s new features comes a set of new keyboard shortcuts. This little cheat sheet will help you work more efficiently with the latest version of Windows.

New to Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7?

Here's some tips to solving problems you may be having while surfing the net - http://bit.ly/3a44oY

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Deploying applications on Windows 7 platform -

Wanna develop Windows 7 applications?
Then visit: Beginner Developer Learning Center! - http://bit.ly/2Cl9WJ

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Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

Find out if your PC can run Windows 7

To see if your PC is ready for Windows 7, download the free Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. It scans your PC for potential issues with your hardware, devices, and installed programs, and recommends what to do before you upgrade.

The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor checks for compatibility issues.

If your PC can run Windows Vista, it can probably run Windows 7, but it's still a good idea to use the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

Note: Information about your PC will be sent to Microsoft, but no information will be used to identify or contact you. For more information, read the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor privacy statement.

Before you begin

Before scanning your PC with the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, be sure to plug in and power on any USB devices or other devices, such as printers, external hard disks, and scanners, that you regularly use with the PC you're checking.

Download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]