Tag Archive for Windows 7

Exploring the option of mobile broadband

September 20, 2010 No comments

Last week, I decided to buy and experiment with a Vodafone PAYG mobile broadband dongle (the actual device is a ZTE K3570-Z)) partly as a backup for my usual broadband (it has had its moments recently) and partly to allow me to stay more connected while on the move. Thoughts of blogging and checking up on email or the realtime web while travelling to and from different places must have swayed me.

Hearing that the use of Windows or OS X with the device had me attempting to hook up the device to Windows 7 running within a VirtualBox virtual machine on my main home computer. When that proved too big a request of the software setup, I went googling out of curiosity and found that there was a way to get the thing going with Linux. While I am not so sure that it works with Ubuntu without any further changes, my downloading of a copy of the Sakis3G script was enough to do the needful and I was online from my main OS after all. So much for what is said on the box…

More success was had with Windows 7 as loaded on my Toshiba Equum notebook with setup and connections being as near to effortless as these things can be. Ubuntu is available on there too, courtesy of Wubi, and the Sakis3G trick didn’t fail for that either.

That’s not to say that mobile broadband doesn’t have its limitations as I found. For instance, Subversion protocols and Wubi installations aren’t supported but that may be a result of non-support of IPv6 than anything else. nevertheless, connection speeds are good as far as I can see though I yet have to test out the persistence of Vodafone’s network while constantly on the move. Having seen how flaky T-Mobile’s network can be in the U.K. as I travel around using my BlackBerry, that is something that needs doing but all seems painless enough so far. However, the fact that Vodafone uses the more usual mobile phone frequency may be a help.

Blogging, Hardware, Linux, Mobile, Software, Telephony, Virtualisation, Web, Web 2.0, Windows

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Adding workspaces to Windows

July 1, 2010 No comments

One of the nice things about working with Linux/UNIX is that you can organise your open applications so that they are open in different workspaces or virtual desktops. When I return to working on Windows, having everything open on the same desktop is something that I find less tidy. However, there is an open source application that adds virtual desktops to Windows and very useful it is too.

It is called VirtuaWin and it adds an icon to the taskbar for switching between workspaces when it is running; there might be a bit of tweaking to be done for it to stay visible all of the time though. You can have it as a startup application in the same way that you have your security software and I have been using it smoothly on both Windows XP and Windows 7 running in VirtualBox virtual machines. Insofar as I have seen it, you can have as many workspaces as you want and switching from one to another is achievable using keyboard shortcuts. Using CTRL, ALT and one of the arrow keys does it for me but you can set up your own. All in all, it’s a small download that brings a little sense of Windows desktop computing.

Software, Virtualisation, Windows

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Consolidation

November 19, 2009 No comments

For a while, the Windows computing side of my life has been spread across far too many versions of the pervasive operating systems with the list including 2000 (desktop and server), XP, 2003 Server, Vista and 7; 9x hasn’t been part of my life for what feels like an age. At home, XP has been the mainstay for my Windows computing needs with Vista Home Premium loaded on my Toshiba laptop. The latter variant came in for more use during that period of home computing “homelessness” and, despite a cacophony of complaints from some, it seemed to work well enough. Since the start of the year, 7 has also been in my sights with beta and release candidate instances in virtual machines leaving me impressed enough to go popping the final version onto both the laptop and in a VM on my main PC. Microsoft finally have got around to checking product keys over the net so that meant a licence purchase for each installation using the same downloaded 32-bit ISO image. 7 still is doing well by me so I am beginning to wonder whether having an XP VM is becoming pointless. The reason for that train of thought is that 7 is becoming the only version that I really need for anything that takes me into the world of Windows.

Work is a different matter with a recent move away from Windows 2000 to Vista heavily reducing my exposure to the venerable old stager (businesses usually take longer to migrate and any good IT manager usually delays any migration by a year anyway). 2000 is sufficiently outmoded by now that even my brother was considering a move to 7 for his work because of al the Office 2007 files that have been coming his way. He may be no technical user but the bad press gained by Vista hasn’t passed him by so a certain wariness is understandable. Saying that, my experiences with Vista haven’t been unpleasant and it always worked well on the laptop and the same also can be said for its corporate desktop counterpart. Much of the noise centered around issues of hardware and software compatibility and that certainly is apparent at work with my having some creases left to straighten.

With all of this general forward heaving, you might think that IE6 would be shuffling its mortal coil by now but a recent check on visitor statistics for this website places it at about 13% share, tantalisingly close to oblivion but still too large to ignore it completely. All in all, it is lingering like that earlier blight of web design, Netscape 4.x. If I was planning a big change to the site design, setting up a Win2K VM would be in order not to completely put off those labouring with the old curmudgeon. For smaller changes, the temptation is not to bother checking but that is questionable when XP is set to live on for a while yet. That came with IE6 and there must be users labouring with the old curmudgeon and that’s ironic with IE8 being available for SP2 since its original launch a while back. Where all this is leading me is towards the idea of waiting for IE6 share to decrease further before tackling any major site changes. After all, I can wait with the general downward trend in market share; there has to be a point when its awkwardness makes it no longer viable to support the thing. That would be a happy day.

Software, Virtualisation, Web, Web Development, Windows

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A multitude of operating systems

October 27, 2009 No comments

Like buses, it seems that a whole hoard of operating systems is descending upon us at once. OS X 10.6 came first and it was the turn of Windows 7 last week with all of the excitement that it generated in the computing and technology media. Next up will be Ubuntu, already a source of some embarrassment for the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones when he got his facts muddled; to his credit he later corrected himself though I do wonder how up to speed is his appreciated that Ubuntu has its distinct flavours with a netbook variant being different to the main offering that I use. Along with Ubuntu 9.10, Fedora 12 and openSUSE 11.2 are also in the wings. As if all these weren’t enough, the latest issue of PC Plus gives an airing to less well-known operating systems like Haiku (the project that carries on BeOS). The inescapable conclusion is that, far from the impressions of mainstream computer users who know only Windows, we are swimming in a sea of operating system options in which you may drown if you decide to try sampling them all. That may explain why I stick with Ubuntu for home use due to reasons of familiarity and reliability and leave much of the distro hopping to others. Of course, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Windows is the choice of where I work with 2000 being usurped by Vista in the next few weeks (IT managers always like to be behind the curve for sake of safety).

Linux, Mac, Software, Windows

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Never undercutting the reseller…

October 23, 2009 No comments

Quite possibly, THE big technology news of the week has been the launch of Windows 7. Regular readers may be aware that I have been having a play with the beta and release candidate versions of the thing since the start of the year. In summary, I have found to work both well and unobtrusively. There have been some rough edges when access files through VirtualBox’s means of accessing the host file system from a VM but that’s the only perturbation to be reported and, even then, it only seemed to affect my use of Photoshop Elements.

Therefore, I had it in mind to get my hands on a copy of the final release after it came out. Of course, there was the option of pre-ordering but that isn’t for everyone so there are others. A trip down to the local branch of PC World will allow you to satisfy your needs with full, upgrade (if you already have a copy of XP or Vista, it might be worth trying out the Windows Secrets double installation trick to get it loaded on a clean system) and family packs. The last of these is very tempting: three Home Premium licences for around £130. Wandering around to your local PC components emporium is an alternative but you have to remember that OEM versions of the operating system are locked to the first (self-built) system on which they are installed. Apart from that restriction, the good value compared with retail editions makes them worth considering. The last option that I wish to bring to your attention is buying directly from Microsoft themselves. You would think that this may be cheaper than going to a reseller but that’s not the case with the Family Pack costing around £150 in comparison to PC World’s pricing and it doesn’t end there. That they only accept Maestro debit cards along with credit cards from the likes of Visa and Mastercard perhaps is another sign that Microsoft are new to whole idea of selling online. In contrast, Tesco is no stranger to online selling but they have Windows 7 on offer though they aren’t noted for computer sales; PC World may be forgiven for wondering what that means but who would buy an operating system along with their groceries? I suppose that the answer to that would be that people who are accustomed to delivering one’s essentials at a convenient time should be able to do the same with computer goods too. That convenience of timing is another feature of downloading an OS from the web and many a Linux fan should know what that means. Microsoft may have discovered this of late but that’s better than never.

Because of my positive experience with the pre-release variants of Windows 7, I am very tempted to get my hands on the commercial release. Because I have until early next year with the release candidate and XP works sufficiently well (it ultimately has given Vista something of a soaking), I’ll be able to bide my time. When I do make the jump, it’ll probably be Home Premium that I’ll choose because it seems difficult to justify the extra cost of Professional. It was different in the days of XP when its Professional edition did have something to offer technically minded home users like me. With 7, XP Mode might be a draw but with virtualisation packages like VirtualBox available for no cost, it’s hard to justify spending extra. In any case, I have Vista Home Premium loaded on my Toshiba laptop and that seems to work fine, in spite of all the bad press that Vista has gotten for itself.

Software, Virtualisation, Windows

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8?

October 12, 2009 No comments

It now seems that we have a new version of Photoshop Elements from Adobe for every year unless you’re a Mac user. Version 7 convinced me to splash out and that gained me Camera Raw recognition of my Pentax K10D along with subtly enhanced image processing power that I have been putting to good use to get more pleasing results than I ever got before. What can be achieved by using levels, curves and the shadow/highlight adjustment tool for exposure correction has amazed me recently. Quick selection functionality has allowed me to treat skies differently from everything else in landscape photos, a flexible graduated filter if you like. It seems to work on Windows 7 along with Vista and XP so I plan to stick with it for a while yet. As you may have gathered from this, it would take some convincing to make me upgrade and, for me, version 8 doesn’t reach that mark. All in all, it seems that it is a way of giving Mac users a new release with added goodness after having to stay with 6 for so long; yes, there are new features like autotagging in the image organiser but they just don’t grab me. Given that they already have Aperture from Apple and Windows users seem to get more releases, it’s a wonder that any Mac user would toy with Elements anyway. Maybe, that’s Adobe’s suspicion too.

Graphics, Imaging, Software

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