Most Anticipated Windows 7

Computers, News & Info | Comments (1)

By MAJOR TOM | May 1, 2009

The buzz about Windows 7 had been around since last year and finally this October, buyers may find it on store shelves.

I would have tried the beta version that had been released for no fee at all if not that I was not computer-savvy enough to install it on my PC by myself.

I would have surely been surfing through the beauteous aquamarine theme design of Windows 7, the new and latest operating system to be released by Microsoft Corporation, replacing the Vista series.

Most of all, the color theme and overall design were the ones that caught my fancy instantly, without even knowing what Windows 7 could really offer. What does a new software could possibly introduce in order to gain some radical milestone – in this stage, it would be hard to fathom.

But Windows 7 indeed offers more advanced dialogue and interface system, using the drag-and-place generously with highly-improved taskbar and full screen previews. More noticeably, PC to Internet interaction is maximized, allowing live streaming from PC to net with more ease with Remote Media Streaming and Virtual Windows Mode.

And its catchphrase is simply “Faster and Easier”.

Now, how fast and easy really it is remains to be seen --- starting October this year.

Learn more about it in Windows Blog.

Windows Live Offers Best Online file Storage

Science & Technology, Computers | Comments (11)

By MAJOR TOM | April 12, 2009

Windows Live is such a heaven sent for those who necessitate online storage of files. As a college instructor, I always need to backup files online to counter USB flash breakdowns, as they often do, what with new form of viruses keeps on being invented. We all must have had that horrifying USB experience, one way or another. Sometimes, it makes me think that some mad genius out there is so mad about flash drives that he keeps on inventing and creating viruses just to break them down.

The most secure and guaranteed back-up measure would be to use our mail accounts, especially Yahoo! Mail, now with unlimited storage capacity. However, the sometimes drawn out log-in process could be so disarming when one need not to check mail anyway, but merely to store and backup.

I had for a long-time used Driveway as my storage facility before, it’s free and it has enormous capacity, allowing transfer or one-time storing of more than 10 MB files, which one could not do in other sites, like Yahoo! Briefcase for one.

Driveway was such a sturdy storage site and very efficient and fast. However, one day, I just could not log in and even if I had to request for a new password, it didn’t resolved my predicament. I had to contact support but no response came my way. I was hacked and they didn’t get me through it. And it was not easy to realize that a lot of my files---some of them I consider so pertinent---were gone in a jiffy, and since most of them were created eons ago, when I still had the old computer, some files are gone forever, as I had no other copy.

I thought that websites offering services should often have a very active and responsive support system and it ought to be illegal if they haven’t any. Otherwise, that’ll be tantamount to committing public mistrust and disturbance. It should be against web use policy.

Box.net, another online storage bin well-known for its sharp and smooth aesthetics, like fascinating dialogue boxes, has now shown some kinks as one could not log in to it as easily, one gotta try about five times to get through it. Now that’s not what I mean by efficient service. I saw that they have gone to commercializing their storage service for a fee now, so perhaps they make free accounts such a hassle that one who has it is summed up to get a price for it. That’s like a pointed gun.

But Windows Live comes now to the rescue, and it is not merely a free online storage bin, but offers lots of other nifty services, like photo and video sharing, email, browsing, instant messaging, and a horde of others. They even have free downloads for your mobile would you believe.

Skydrive, the portion there that offers free storage, ( click on ‘More’ to go to Skydrive’) allows a total of 25 GB of space and that’s more than enough for many of us.

And besides, we can rely on its reliability and long-term efficiency as it is being owned and operated by none other than the Microsoft Co., one who provides us all with the very nifty Microsoft Office. Just because of this, Windows Live should be the best free online storage bin that is available out there, and we need not look for anything else.

Widget Channel: The Future of TV and Internet

Personal and Family, Science & Technology, Computers | Comments (4)

By MAJOR TOM | August 21, 2008

Just about these times that I had been daydreaming about something concerning television---about how the way we should watch and enjoy it, in this age of supercomputers---Intel and Yahoo! has just recently announced the latest innovation in Internet technology by initiating the Widget Channel project . To be sure, this technology would entirely change the way TV viewers enjoy the ever-present boob-tube. The combination of TV and Internet is just the way to go for home entertainment.

Accordingly, Yahoo-branded TV widgets "will enable consumers to engage in a variety of experiences such as watching videos, tracking their favorite stocks or sports teams, interacting with friends, or staying current on news and information.”

Sometime ago, while I was watching TV at home by my lonesome, I had suddenly imagined someone, or some voice that was trying to catch my attention. “Hey you!” the voice said, “It’s me, Mr. Ryan Seacrest of American Idol”.

I would of course be so startled and would have asked the voice (to which I am not yet sure to where it came from) “Me? Are you talking to me?”

And the voice (allegedly that of the famous and handsome Ryan Seacrest) would say, “Yeah you, the one sitting on a rocking chair wearing an orange shirt. You just won a million dollars!!!” and other voices would suddenly come bursting out saying “Congratulations, you who is presently sitting in a rocking chair, from the Philippines!”; voices that should come from Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and the miraculously nice-sounding Mr. Simon Cowell.

Of course that scenario was just an illusion and if it had actually happened to me just most recently, I would have been so amazed and so startled that I wouldn’t be able to move from my rocking chair for some moments.

But someday, that scenario, where TV and Internet are fused together, allowing easy interaction between and among the viewers and the viewed, especially becoming useful for TV contests that give lots of money away, would no longer be so startling and so surprising, for in fact that’ll be just the future of the way we enjoy home entertainment.

And with the advent of Widget Channel, the future is so near. Thanks to Intel and Yahoo!

Google News As Homepage---Why Not?

Computers | Comments (15)

By MAJOR TOM | June 29, 2007

I have always been a Yahoo! person since I remained an Internet Explorer user despite the spread of opinions against it, and in favor of revolutionary browsers such as Mozilla Firefox (most especially) and Opera and you know whenever one opens up a an IE browser, 90% of the time Yahoo! explodes into your screen as a homepage/search site.

But one time I took fancy of making Google as my homepage for my browser at home and put on with it, using it as my default search engine and true to form and exact to what many say about it, it is not only fast-loading but searches are done in a much quicker way. I know you might interrogate me for this and quip, "Why didn't you know about that? It had been like that ever since---Mozilla as the faster search engine?". Somehow I knew about this fact already but I have not gotten to comparing---whether Yahoo! is much better than Google---a search is a search and I wanted to do it on my own accord, and not for anyone else to tell me what or how I am going to be searching and what I am about to search. My way or the highway.

But slower Internet connection at home now comes as a factor and you could say that I should hitting myself on the head for sentimentally sticking to Yahoo! despite that sometimes, it takes a lifetime to appear on the screen in full; what with all those heavy animated or moving advertisements that it has now almost all the time.

So now, Google is the default search engine on my home computer.

I then farther inquired on what Google could offer me especially I noticed (and why I got discourage in using it previously) that whenever the homepage comes on, one could see almost nothing; no news or info like Yahoo! does and I am a news kind of guy. Half the time, I logged to the net to scour for news and information. I am so used at opening the browser and immediately what comes on are news and information like what the Yahoo! homepage has. But it is not the case with Google.

So I delved farther into Google’s cache of services (as we all know that it got lots and lots of them) and went into the Google News page. I was a bit mesmerized when I opened such page, noticing immediately the voluminous amount of news titles included in it, from top to bottom, and guess what?---no advertisements with animated fishes ogling in front of you, swimming to and fro and huge American cars changing colors or sizes, making loading more difficult. I am not really against adds on web pages, we all got to make some dough one way or the other, but sometimes Yahoo! has become more of an advertisement page rather than a search engine. Adverts first, and then search later. Sounds like fly now and pay later. Only a rawer deal.

Google News is actually a news aggregator that looks like a news site. It is highly automated with minimal human intervention in collating the news. It headlines most recent as it comes and most important articles bannered (in accordance with an installed automated system). For a news guy like me, this is just what I wanted and I am thankful that I have gotten to this site through my tinkering. On Yahoo!, the news comes in trickle and feels like it becomes too compartmentalized with news over Iraq and Capitol Hill given most importance and headlined almost all the time.

If one might ask, “Is there a website out there that in one click, you can have all the news that you wanted?”. Of course there is no such thing but Google News comes close, too close I feel. Only problem is that it doesn’t include local Philippine news which I also dig all the time. I don’t know if by “personalizing it” (Yes, just like MyYahoo!, you can adjust it’s content and looks), local news would be headlined among the extensive global news from all corners of the world.

Right now, I am still of double-mind if I would go farther and make Google News my default homepage, having a gregarious amount of news whenever I click on the IE icon on my desktop, just like in my wet dreams my thoughts---a site full of news in just one click of the button.

Why don’t you try it and see if you want also to make it as your regular news site or even the default homepage/search engine. You can have the option of searching merely the news aggregate or the entire web for that matter. Google News collates from almost 5,000 news sources and includes search for news archives (you might want to search for the old news in your mind) and it also has a portion for “Blog Search”. That shows how Google have so much respect for humble and lowly bloggers like us. Maybe, it’s time to pay back the respect.

Microsoft Unveils Surface Computing

Computers | Comments (8)

By MAJOR TOM | June 2, 2007

Domino-tagging, Surface Computing technology, real-life object----these are the terms that shall be new right now (this day in fact) but would be the idioms of the future
in the computer world. Just five hours ago, Bill Gates and Microsoft had unveiled the Surface Screen computing to a wide media coverage with Gates himself demonstrating the computer-of-the-future where the keypad and the mouse shall take a backseat and would be doomed to obselescence, as he(Gates) showed and wowed worldwide audience on the amazing capability and innovation of a computer system that both beguiles and amazes the mind.

In surface screen computing system, operations can be done thru the simple use of the hands or fingers. The conduct becomes simpler yet the technology behind it challenges the boundaries of thought. I myself could not believe that this day would come, when reality meets fiction and fiction rattles reality. And through all that, my mind is reminded of a very futuristic movie in Tom Cruise's and Steven Speilberg's "Minority Report" where the huge computing system could be efficiently controlled by bare hands or fingers; as images zooms in or zooms out, enters or escapes, with merely the wave of the hand. This is the future, now.

And the package is so neat with the use of giant screens for multiple users at any one time. And the images are sharper and clearer and definitely---as I have said earlier---operations would be simpler and more efficient.

There is some hitch to this "new thing" however for it costs a whopping ten thousand dollars to have it in your living room at this time, about half a million pesos. Or simply said, it is equal to having a brand new car in the Philippines.

But Bill Gates committed prominently that prices would sharply dive down in three or five years, as sales gradually increase (exponentially I hope). So for now, we have to wait and be patient.

Soon surface computing would be available on the nearby second hand store. Or on Ebay for that matter. At a much affordable price---I hope.