A full Windows 7 Review will be up shortly. I strongly recommend Windows 7.
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Windows 7 is a beast of an operating system. It can run on old hardware wonderfully well, unlike its predecessor Windows Vista which required major hardware upgrades for several organizations which were till then using relatively old hardware to give them optimum performance.
But if you are going to buy a new PC with Windows 7 pre-loaded, why don’t you try an AIO? An All-in-One (AIO) PC basically consists of three components – the monitor which has an integrated CPU, the keyboard and the mouse. AIOs have started gaining popularity due to two main major factors – they look sexy and they save space. It is also worth noting that the concept of an AIO was first given by Apple with their iMac. So here we present you some of the best AIOs available in the market currently:-
5. Sony Vaio VGCJS410F/S
This AIO from Sony has Intel’s Pentium E5400 clocked at 2.7 GHz along with 4GB of DDR2 RAM giving it enough juice to carry out your tasks efficiently, although the processor will surely hamper it. 320 GB of disk space is given for storing all your files while for graphics there is Intel’s X4500 HD graphics. The monitor is 20.1 inch and has a screen resolution of 1680*1050. The camera with face tracking technology is also included. This system, meanwhile runs the 64 bit edition of Windows 7 Home Premium. No Bluetooth, and touch screen support are a disappointment but the low price is well, okay.
Price: $849.99
4. Sony Vaio VGCJS450F/S
Forgive me for my fascination with Sony’s AIOs, but their products are just so beautiful. Anyways this one is similar to product number 5 on this list with the only exception being the addition of 500 GB of disk space – 180 GB more than the previous model, Bluetooth 2.1. and Blu-Ray support. Well, these additions are really worthwhile and so, this product finds a place on this list.
Price: $999.99
3. Dell Studio One 19
The Dell Studio One 19 looks like an over sized tablet when you first look at it, but on the second look, it doesn’t fail to impress. Available in four colors: White, Charcoal, Navy Blue and Tuscan Red, the top end model features a 18.5 inch touch screen, with a screen resolution of 1366*768 and a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is more than enough for your 720p HD movies, all of which can be dumped on this model’s spacious 640 GB hard drive along with all your documents and games. To play all those games and movies, you can safely rely on its Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 processor clocked at 2.33 GHz and 4 GB of DDR2 RAM while the integrated Nvidia Geforce 9400 graphics are good enough for moderate gameplay. The integrated webcam and the multi-touch capabilities of this device make it one of the best AIOs available. This top end model also includes within its price, Dell’s 2 year Basic Service Plan and Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.
Price: $1199
2. Sony Vaio VPCL111FX/B
This VPCL111FX/B has a Intel Pentium E5400 processor clocked at 2.7 Ghz and has been coupled with 4 GB of DDR2 RAM, to give you the best performance. For storage, there is 320 GB while for graphics there is Nvidia Geforce G210M having 512 MB of dedicated VRAM. The monitor is 24 inch and has a 1920*1080 resolution which allows you to watch full HD movies. Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi support, Blu-Ray is all there but only the processor is a disappointment in this wonderful machine otherwise running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.
Price: $1299.99
1. Sony Vaio VPCL116FX/B
This Vaio, also described as a HDTV, is although available only in Black color, features Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q8400S processor clocked at 2.66 GHz along with 6 GB of DDR2 RAM which will be more than enough for all your memory intensive tasks. The hard drive is 500 GB is although less, considering it may store a lot of 1080p movies. It has been correctly described as a HDTV as it integrates a Blu-Ray player, TV Tuner card and a remote. A wall mount option is also given. The monitor featuring a 24 inch touchscreen has a 1920*1080 resolution, which means that you can watch all your 1080p movies on it. For gaming, it has the Nvidia Geforce GT 240M, which has 1 GB VRAM dedicated totally to it. Apart from all this, it features an integrated camera with a 640*480 inch resolution, Bluetooth 2.1 and Wi-Fi.
Price: $1799.99
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A user’s most common reaction upon installing a new OS is to personalize it. Windows 7 allows you to do this in different ways from fine-tuning its colors, changing the desktop backgrounds, screensavers, sounds, mouse pointers, themes and a whole lot more.
Through this article you will see how Windows 7 will allow you to balance between aesthetics and performance, so read on …
Personalizing Windows 7 to suit your tastes and preferences will make your experience with your OS a more enjoyable and fulfilling one. Try to spend a few minutes now to do these and you bet you will curl up in satisfaction.
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As more and more companies are gearing towards the development of various eco-friendly technologies, Microsoft through its release of Windows 7 had signified its intention to join and be counted. As an eco-friendly product, it is making the current technology safer, more efficient, and environmentally friendly.
From the outside, Windows 7 retail box is eco-friendly with the plastic case protecting the disk lighter and is recyclable. It opens like a standard DVD case with a packaging that is 37% lighter than its predecessor.
Inside the OS, Windows 7 was designed to help companies focused on reducing costs. It is in this area that Windows 7 had left its predecessor lagging quite behind. Windows 7 has more energy saving options for IT administrators called the “Power Management” features. This is the ability to manage power consumption via group policy, WMI, and a command line utility called PowerCfg. The OS uses time coalescing, an enhanced processor power management that can provide the highest level of performance by grouping tasks sent to the processor power management in turn providing the highest level of performance by grouping tasks sent to the processor core at the same time while using the least amount of power.
Another simple and yet very obvious move towards being eco-friendly is manifested through its shutting down process which takes relatively a much shorter time. This is primarily because of fewer active services running in the background. Windows 7 can reduce the timeout to 12 seconds and enable users to force shutdown all unresponsive applications.
For users on the go, the adaptive display brightness feature of Windows 7 will help your battery last longer. This can be seen on its automatic screen dimming, powering off unused ports, less power consuming DVD playback and a more accurate battery life indicator. Once the network cable is reconnected, Windows 7 will put the adapter back into a full-power state. In addition to this, Windows 7 also enables wireless network controllers to enter low power modes. Laptops with wireless antennas can also be disabled when not in use for Internet connection or browsing to prolong battery use.
By providing an infrastructure and tools that will make developers determine the energy consumption of their applications and allowing users both individuals and on corporate settings to trim down on their energy cost; Windows is emulating an example worth following. By setting their initiatives towards the Green Revolution, Microsoft together with other eco-conscious companies are creating demands for similar energy-efficient products and propelling the technology sector trend toward green products and processes.
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Although the technology of single touch input was already implemented during Vista’s time, this is now once again put into limelight with the current release of Windows 7. Microsoft had now joined Apple in the bandwagon of the touch revolution with its integration of the touch interface technology. Microsoft’s own version and implementation of this multi touch screen technology is a pay-off for many years of investing in researches on better ways to interact directly with computing devices. Nowadays, touch-enabled surfaces are almost everywhere from laptop touch pads, cell l phones, remote controls, GPS devices, and many more. And with more displays becoming both good and quite affordable, the transition from mouse and keyboard input might not be a far-fetched idea anymore.
Let us explore how this touch experience works…
Basic Touch Gestures
Gestures are one or two finger touch inputs that translate into predefined action (gesture) that the user performs. Once this is detected, Windows 7 will then send a gesture message to your application which contains the information needed for decoding and make it work.
Single Tap –Single Click
Double Tap – Double Click
Tap and Hold – Left Click
Single Finger Rotate – Touch the corner of an object and drag it in a clockwise or counter clockwise motion to rotate the object.
Swipe Left – Page Forward
Swipe Right – Page Back
Swipe Up – Scroll Down
Swipe Down – Scroll Up
Two Finger Pinch Inwards – Zoom In
Two Finger Pinch Outwards – Zoom Out
Double Tap – Reset Zoom
Double Press and Drag – Pan
Two Finger Spin – Rotate
Single Tap and Hold Followed by a Second Finger Tap – Right Click
On-Screen Keyboard
Microsoft had ushered in a new breed of UI with the following major elements: multi touch, physics and gestures. By integrating the multi touch support into its operating system, Microsoft had elevated itself several notches higher by allowing developers to open a new avenue in software development that will use multi touch on their applications. Likewise, the hardware aspect is advancing up ahead even though applications are still relatively limited. After several decades of working on user interface functionality, Microsoft had finally hit home on what could be one of the best user interfaces after all.
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Have you ever experienced being helpless and speechless, not knowing how you are to relate a technical error you encountered in your PC? Those days are gone anyway because Windows 7 had already resolved this. So many features of Windows 7 had been elaborately discussed since day one; from light and minor features such as wallpapers down to its critical security features. But have you heard of the PSR of Windows 7? This stands for Problem Steps Recorder, a built-in diagnostic tool that does the following:
To activate and use PSR, follow the list of steps below:
1.To run PSR is to go to Start and in the Search box, type PSR, then press ENTER.
(Note: PSR can be found at C:\Windows\System32\psr.exe)
2. Press Start Record or use the keyboard shortcut , ALT-A.
3. Start your recording of the entire process.
4. A downloadable PSR report will be generated.
5. Remember to include comments and notes along the way. As you enter your comments, you will be prompted to highlight the area of the screen that will be added to the report.
6. Just press Stop Record to finish the recording and documenting process.
7. After which, the PSR Report can already be viewed.
8. Take note however that in recording administrative tasks, PSR should run in administrator mode.
Once done, the captured data is stored in an MHTML document which is enclosed in a zip file. This zip file can be emailed and forwarded to a technical support group. Likewise, the recorded steps can also be viewed as a slideshow for presentation purposes. This cool utility will also come in handy for the recreation of the exact steps in a coding environment which are usually needed by developers.
This might not be a “biggie” compared to the other features of Windows 7, but you can just imagine the time and effort that will be saved for other more important tasks. For help desk supporters, this is one tool that will make their lives easy and more productive. It’s a simple tool and yet works wonders!
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The most talked about breakthrough in Windows 7’s user interface is no other than the “Superbar” or its Taskbar. From here, users can access all programs displayed on their desktops. Some had claimed it’s a clone of Mac’s Dock because of the similarity in the use of large icons for application launching and switching but apparently this is far from the truth. Windows 7 taskbar’s very essence is the ability to switch between windows which are equivalent to its applications unlike that of Mac’s Dock, wherein each window represents a document. There are other obvious differences which can be mentioned in detail perhaps sometime in another blog post. What this article wants to put emphasis now is how Windows 7 had brought a different kind of user interaction through the enhancement of its Taskbar feature.
Let us explore in detail and see why the “Superbar” deserves both the Pros and Novice Users’ attention.
A Pleasing Visual Effect – Most will agree that Windows deserve a round of applause for the makeover look that the Taskbar now has. Although it has bigger icons and takes much space, still a lot of applications can be squeezed in. The presence of large icons is because of Windows 7’s support to multi-touch technology. It supports the Aero Glass look without text and once a window is maximized, gone is the dark and dreary opaque color of the taskbar and the window’s title bar.
Bye Quick Launch, Hello Smart Launch – The Quick Launch buttons and separate taskbar had been dropped in favor of a faster way of maneuvering. Right-clicking on an icon brings up a list of recent items, open each one with a single click. Windows 7’s Color Hot-Track in which a light source tracks the mouse and consequently, the specific program icon lights up with its own color. Any icon that has a border frame and has that glowing effect then is the active application.
Slick and Snappy Thumbnails – Hovering over an icon on the dock will display small thumbnails of every active window of that application. These Thumbnails allow fast switching to the programs they represent. Moreover, if these are video thumbnails then they are shown in real-time. The Thumbnails are also highly customizable in any photo-editing application, automatically grouped together, and can likewise be displayed separately even the icon represents multiple windows. This paved the way for a clutter less process of managing and switching between windows.
Useful Progress Bars – Programs can now give feedback and information about progress by having their taskbar button turn into a progress bar.
A More Restrained Notification Area – Control of the Notification Area is back to the user’s hand. By default, only selected system icons will be displayed while the rest will appear in a menu. Control is achieved through dragging icons on or off the taskbar. Furthermore, any annoying alert can be configured or totally disabled.
Windows 7 had adopted several changes indeed with its Taskbar but definitely it’s for the better. Now, still in its initial phase, Windows 7’s “Superbar” rave is still far from over. The best judge of this is time itself because the more the Taskbar is put into practice and in constant use; the more we will appreciate the changes that had taken place.
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Google announced Android, its mobile operating system in late 2007. Since then, the operating system has come a long way from being developed by Android Inc. to now being developed by the Open Handset Alliance, which is led by Google. The announcement which was made on November 5, did not really shock the tech world. Geeks all over the world were either anticipating a Google Phone or Google’s greater participation in the mobile world. With Google’s announcement of Android they weren’t disappointed either.
Hardware
Well, for the operating system to run, it needs hardware and the first Android device to be available commercially was the HTC Dream (also known as T-Mobile G1) which came out on October 22, 2008. Featuring a sliding QWERTY, and a capacitive touchscreen, it was under intense “pressure” since it had to showcase the world what Android was really capable of, to show it was capable of taking on mighty operating systems such as Symbian, Mac OS, Windows Mobile or BlackBerry OS.
And did it pass the test?
Yes, as after a month of its launch, on December 9, 2008, it brought major partners to the Open Handset Alliance such as ARM, Atheros, Asus, Garmin, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Vodafone. This partnership has already started to bear fruits as Sony Ericsson has plans to launch a number of handsets running Android next year.
The potential of Android has just started to show, as it has matured from version one to version two, featuring a number of wide changes, such as the ability to record video, improvement of the User Interface and the User Experience, improvements in hardware speed, and features such as directly uploading videos to sites such as YouTube, beside quashing many bugs.
The best examples to showcase Android’s progress are devices like Motorola Droid from Verizon and HTC Hero, alongwith other similar devices.
Android is not just confined to mobiles only, it has already found its way on e-book readers such as Nook, Portable Music Players, GPS devices, laptops, netbooks.
Software
One major advantage with Android is that it is Open Source and runs on Linux kernel version 2.6. The source code of Android was released on October 21, 2008 and has since been available under the Apache License. This means that it is due to this only that Android has been available on such a wide range of devices. Companies can modify the code to suit their needs and satisfy the customer.
Graduating from version one to present doesn’t just mean that Android has only undergone hardware improvements. It has also undergone several software improvements like improvements in the touch keyboard of the phone, the addition of the Android Market, and the constant improvement of the Google experience which is essential to the Android experience.
Conclusion
The Google experience which the device promises courtesy of Android is one of the most important selling point of the device. Google has become interconnected to an average person’s life, with its services being extremely popular and Android promises to integrate this experience, for Google and the user’s own benefit.
Case in point, is the update of the navigations application, which was developed by Google, in Android’s version 2, has also become one of the most important selling points of Android. Users were till now used to paying for the GPS service until Google came and revolutionised the scene with its own navigation application which was available for free with Android.
To conclude, Android can become massively popular if it continues going along the path which it has set for itself.
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