Windows 7, a month away (part2)

Another great improvement is the new Windows search – it helps you find files and programs on your computer in seconds. Your files are also organized in libraries, so you can work with them much easier; these libraries group similar files together, even though they are saved in different folder on your hard drive.

Jump lists – these are pretty great too. We all have our favorite programs and files that we use all the time, the jump lists show you the most recent ones that you have worked them, but also allow you to pin files to the list, so it is always there.

And there’s even more – if you have multiple windows cluttering up your desktop, simply grab the one that you want to work with, shake it and all the other windows will disappear, if you want to bring them back just shake that window again. If you want to take a quick look at your desktop, even when you have numerous programs open, simply move your mouse cursor to the bottom right corner of your screen and all the open windows will become transparent.

All this sounds just great, but how does Windows 7 fare when it comes to device management? Microsoft has developed a new technology, called Device Stage, which will make your life easier – you can see, manage, and configure you cameras, phones, printers, or other compatible devices that you have connected from a single window.

Have you ever tried setting up a home network between two computers running XP or Vitsa? That has never been an easy task! Sharing your files, photos, movies, or printers between two or more computers in your house is pretty straightforward with Windows 7: the new feature, called HomeGroup, is installed by default and new computers can be added to the network easily. All you have to do is run a simple Wizard, which will guide you through the process. Compare this to the setting up and networking two PCs running XP – you had to set up a host, set up a client, run a Network Wizard, then configure your computer for file and printer sharing, and it almost never worked.

As far as security is concerned, Windows 7 is adding new security features, which will help protect your computer from various threads, not to mention that the new operating system will annoy its users with less security prompts, which sure is a step in the right direction.

Is there anything bad about Windows 7? Well, we can’t say for sure before we get the final release installed on our computers. Many people have reported different problems with the Beta, but then again, this is what Betas are for – to be tested and later on improved. Some users have experienced hardware computability issues, not getting their second hard drives recognized, the Aero Peek not working properly, crashes during installation, etc., but it looks like Microsoft is listening to the people this time and we all hope that the final product will be as good as we expect it to be!

Windows 7, just a month away (part 1)

Windows 7, the next version of the most widely used operating system, is about to be officially released on 22nd October 2009. On January 9th 2009 Microsoft offered a free download of the Beta version and millions of people across the Globe downloaded their copy, installed it on their machines, and the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. It looks like only three years after the launch of Vista, Microsoft actually has decided to make an operating system with less whistles and bells, a system that is a robust and stable. And it seems that this time they got it right!

The new Windows will come in seven different editions, from the very limited Starter Edition, which was originally designed to allow the end-user to run only three applications at the same time – a restriction, which was said to have been removed, to the special EU edition, which will ship without the Microsoft browser Internet Explorer. The Family pack, which can be installed on up to three different computers, will be released in the US and Canada in October 2009, but won’t be available in the UK until at least 2010.

So, what did people that have tried the Beta have to say? The first thing that everybody noticed was that Windows 7 is fast! And it is fast not only compared to the bloated Windows Vista, but compared to XP as well. It also offers a great user interface, which should help the average user find and run things much easier and faster. Even though the desktop improvements might seem small, they sure make a huge difference. I work with a lot of text files, sometimes I copy from the one and paste to the other, and I like putting two text editor’s windows next to each other in order to compare them. In Windows XP I had to resize and drag the two windows and it would take me almost a minute to align them next to each other. With Windows 7 once you open two programs that you want to compare, simply drag them to the opposite sides of your screen and they will snap together: it’s as easy as that!

Managing the taskbar and the system tray is much easier as well – now you can “pin” your programs and files to the taskbar and later launch them with a single click, the icons are pretty big so you don’t have to guess what they are, hover your mouse cursor over them and you will see the “preview pane” – thumbnails of the different windows’ instances that the program has open.

Windows 7 pre-order in UK almost sold out on day one

Reaction of British users to Microsoft new operating system Windows 7 seem to be far more enthusiastic than the way Window Vista was received. Windows 7 which was made available in the UK today via pre-order service at selected outlets was almost sold out within the first 8 hours users can pre-order the OS.

Amazon.co.uk one of the retailers offering Windows 7 pre-order service said that sales of Windows 7 in the first eight hours it was available outstripped those of Windows Vista’s entire 17 week pre-order period. Customer can keep placing orders for the pre-ordered copy till 9 August, it will be sent out to customers on the 22nd of October, the same day as it goes on sale in stores.
Windows 7 is much cheaper than Vista and almost all previous version of Windows operating system at £50 for the home version, while the professional version costs around £100.

The limited number of pre-ordered copies will be shipped on 22 October, the same day it goes on sale in stores.

Pre-orders are available from a number of retailers, with the period ending on 9 August.

195 Billion Pounds more in Microsoft kitty

Analysts IDC predict that about 177 million copies of Windows 7 will be sold by the end of 2010 world wide. 50 million of this will be sold in Europe. The firm estimates that products and services surrounding Windows 7 will generate $320bn (£195bn).

No upgrade from previous Windows OS
One of the downside of Windows 7 is the fact that it has to be installed on a clean PC, you cannot upgrade from previous versions of Windows OS to Windows 7, you will have to first uninstall previous OS and then install Windows 7.
The version of Windows 7 sold in Europe will not be bundled with Internet Explorer because of EU anti-trust laws against Microsoft.

You can discuss Windows 7 and other computer and software related issues at UK Webmaster Forum.

Windows Azure – Microsoft Clouds Computing

For many years, technology experts forecast that the future of computing is in thin client computing; a large powerful central computer running operating systems and applications while out desktop PC are reduced to mere terminals that only send requests to the central computer for everything we needs, similar to the IBM AS400 model. Alas, reality cannot be more different as Amazon and Google demonstrated with the success of their Internet based software using the so called cloud computing.

Microsoft is playing catch up, but they seem determined to catch up fast, when at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie as announce their own cloud computing platform called Windows Azure. Azure platform will allows developers to create web applications using  Microsoft development tools and deploy them across Microsoft’s data centers. Some of the highlights of Windows Azure features follows:

• Add Web service capabilities to existing packaged applications.
• Build, modify, and distribute applications to the Web with minimal on-premises resources.
• Perform services (large-volume storage, batch processing, intense or large-volume computations, etc.) off premises.
• Create, test, debug, and distribute Web services quickly and inexpensively.
• Reduce costs of building and extending on-premises resources.
• Reduce the effort and costs of IT management
• Option to run Azure on your own computer or Microsoft data centres.

Amazon was credited with the development of the cloud computing platform, with huge data centres processing millions of  transactions from Amazon ecommerce sites around the world, Amazon basically sell off its spare capacity on it servers to a range of customers ranging from small application developers to huge organisations.