Category: Uncategorized

TechWeb’s Desktop Pipeline has published their Top 10 Windows XP Tips…

“With Vista at least seven months away, we’ll all be using Windows XP for some time to come. So why not make the most of it? Here’s our all-time favorite Win XP hacks, tips, tricks, and fixes.”

An interesting list, with my favorites being 1, 2, and 5. (with apologies to Monty Python)

• Tip 10: Halt background services to improve performance.
  


• Tip 9: Increase available disk space by scaling back System Restore.
  


• Tip 8: Scrub your hard drive clean.
  


• Tip 7: Run two displays on the same PC.
  


• Tip 6: Force unresponsive applications to close at shutdown.
  


• Tip 5: Automatically optimize your hard drive.
  


• Tip 4: Set a custom resolution.
  


• Tip 3: Stay on top of registry changes.
  


• Tip 2: Recover lost data.
  


• Tip 1: Automatically log when and why shutdowns have occurred.
  


• Bonus tips!
  

Don’t miss TweakUI, which I’m surprised did not make it into the Top Ten list (but is in the bonus tips)…

Download TweakUI. Microsoft’s downloadable suite of PowerToys includes one of our favorite utilities: TweakUI. This handy app gives you a plethora of ways to customize Windows XP, including changing the location of the My Music and My Documents folders, adjusting Windows’ appearance, altering the contents of the Start Menu, and more. It’s at least 10 tips in one!

My favorite part of the article recalls The Robot’s dialogue from “Lost in Space,” with the heading “Danger, Danger!” A little dramatic, but it calls attention that many items do involve modifications to the Windows Registry.

“Before you jump into the story, a word to the wise: Some of the tips discussed here involve hacking Win XP’s powerful registry. Before you make any registry changes, make sure you back up your existing registry; that way, you’ll be able to restore it in case something gets fouled up.

“Backing up your registry is easy. Simply open RegEdit (click Start > Run, type regedit and click OK), then select File > Export from the main menu. You can export a copy of your registry to any folder on any hard drive in your system. Exporting a copy to the desktop is usually easiest.”

Tags: Microsoft, TweakUI, tips, Windows XP.

OK, one more: this week, Fortune arrived at home with an article on “Microsoft’s new brain” on how Ray Ozzie is making an impression on the company.

The interesting thing is that this comes at a time when we’re seeing incredible innovation in products and services come from so many different parts of the company through 2006 and into next year.

IMHO… this doesn’t come from one person or a single team: it comes from the so many places that teams mapped out prior to Ozzie’s arrival, which he and othger top managers have helped codify across the various players and product groups. And it comes from the additional horsepower upstairs and the excellent management instilled across the three divisions. This and many more things happening at many different levels has helped the company kick a much better “better together” strategy into gear.

This from the same issue where Fortune cover states that the boom in the Internet is back. I didn’t know it was gone…just steadily increasing faster than ever. Case in point:

“Driving this transformation is the extraordinary growth in the number of people with access to high-speed Internet connections. In 2000 just five million Americans had fast Internet access at home. At the end of 2005 that figure was 73 million, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.”

Tags: Microsoft, Ray Ozzie, internet access.

As Rob points out in his blog, there is a good article this week in the latest PC Magazine on “Why You Want Vista Now!” It’s an excellent overview of the new OS and the benefits it will bring. As a resource, I’ve found that PC Magazine is well worth the subscription (and I often enjoy Dvorak’s columns).

I also like the new layout of the “First Looks” section (where the print magazine provides a quick overview of new products), and this month’s Build It column (also online) on how to quiet your PC. A good reference for people who are looking to move a PC into the living room (as a home theatre PC or HTPC) or frankly to make for a quiet office.

Tags: Microsoft, HTPC, Windows Vista.

There’s a new survey that notes illegal downloads of content via the Web has dropped by 17% over the last couple of years. that young Internet users who  percentage points in the last two years. When they were asked what was the biggest concern, most said that they were afraid of downloading a computer virus (63%) or spyware (52%).

         

Of course, good parenting obviously has had an effect: 40% said that “getting in trouble with my parents” was why teens weren’t downloading illegal content… one of the biggest increases in all of the reasons cited (from 26%) in 2004.

My hunch: many kids who ususally have media players at the ready are becoming big iTunes, MSN Music, Yahoo Music and Rhapsody users. I know this first hand as I have seen the number of Apple iTunes cards and MSN Music tokens as gifts has risen steadily over the last year to our own family members. As I posted in February, I’m confident that we’ll see increases in music stored on PCs (even with the gorowth of the average PC hard drive year over year).

Personally, after I joined a music subscription service, I’ve found that my own music listening has gone up dramatically and the bredth of tunes I listen to is more diverse than ever. For less than the price of a new CD each month, I get access to a huge library of music.

The devices are better than ever: my current small favorite is the Sandisk Sansa m240, with a gigabyte of storage, USB 2.0, an FM radio and long battery life from a rechargeable AAA battery. The PlaysForSure logo ensures that I was able to load it up with subscription music. It sounds like an ad, but it’s a much better customer experience than I found last year when I tried to take advantage of some of the early subscription services with flash memory.

And when I find something I really like, I buy the CD and encode it in Windows Media Audio Lossless.

Tags: microsoft, Urge, Rhapsody, digital music, iTunes, MSN Music.

This past week has been busy — even with the school holiday — so what time I’m not spending on work I spend with the kids. We have a number of year-end and next fiscal year things in play, so I have a feeling April will me a light month for postings.

But that doesn’t leep me from mentioning the series that MSNBC has on their Take 3, this month with a look at Vanishing America. This week Take 3 features a look at a vanishing breed of people who interact with customers one on one, from a home-delivery milkman to the newspaper carrier to tupperware.

OK, so what the heck does this have to do with satisfying our customers and partners?

Some of the messages I found in the clip on the milkman applies to so much more than just delivering dairy products. It talks about personal service, customer interaction and satisfaction: simply, if you are going to survive, you need to provide a level of service and personal touch that adds incredible value.

More on that later. Now back to my regularly scheduled meeting.

Tags: Microsoft, customer service, customers, values.