There’s a new Laptop Hunters "You find it, you keep it" Microsoft PC television commercial out with Lauren (a new law school student) and Sue (her mom)…
Tags: articles, what I read, I’m a PC, Microsoft, Windows.
Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, Windows Vista, video, laptops
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Groucho Marx famously said…
"I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member."
Well, there’s an exception to every rule. I found such an exception in the Windows Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse is a community where you can connect with other members and help people learn how to use Windows.
"The Clubhouse is all about sharing content and ideas. Showing what you do best. Voicing your opinions. Being an active member in a community that will select the best content for display on the Windows Vista and Windows Live sites."
This is a place where you can create and rate content about Microsoft products, share through posts on your blog and provide feedback on other’s posts.
More info:
I went ahead and posted my own profile here and tagged a few of my favourite blog posts, answers to popular questions on everything from Windows Live to the latest on Windows 7 to show up in the feed.
Tags: articles, blogs, Windows 7.
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Of interest is the TechNet information on Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 using the User State Migration Tool (aka USMT).
With it, you can migrate your files and settings from your Windows XP computer to a new Windows 7 installation.
The original Files and Settings Transfer Wizard in Windows XP was designed for home and small office users to migrate files and settings. The User State Migration Tool has the same functionality as the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, but also provides more flexibility to IT Pros and network administrators to customize specific settings including registry modifications.
(A video is also available for download here.)
In the video on TechNet Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 Beta with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Beta, Jeremy Chapman walks through the User State Migration Tool in the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit to transfer files and user settings to a new Windows 7 installation. (As noted, the new Microsoft Deployment Toolkit beta can be found on http://connect.microsoft.com.)
Tags: articles, blogs, Windows 7.
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Lots of news today (as noted in the news today) on the availability of the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC). Remember, only download the Windows 7 RC from a trusted source – via Microsoft – to save yourself the security risk.
As noted on MSDN and TechNet, the RC is an opportunity for enthusiasts, IT professionals, developers and folks like you to take the OS for a spin and test it a real world environment. With the Microsoft Windows 7 Compatibility Center site now live, you can also get more help with devices and applications on Windows 7 as noted here (from my Twitter post).
Stephen Rose – Sr Community Manager – Windows Client IT Pro put together a video for the Springboard site on what some of the new features in the Windows 7 Release Candidate area. You can find it in his post "Want to learn what’s new in the Windows 7 RC?" and view it here, too.
You can also read more about Windows 7 Pro & Windows XP Mode in the Q&A with Scott Woodgate as he discusses the new Windows XP Mode with Virtual PC and Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V).
As noted by Microsoft_Gov, Windows 7 RC will have 13-Month Life Span, and PC users can run it until June 1, 2010.
Elinor Mills of CNETNews offers a quick look at some of the security enhancements in Windows 7, with mentions of DirectAccess and BitLocker To Go.
And a personal favourite story of mine today, from the Engineering Windows 7 blog courtesy of Michael Fortin, is the Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives (aka SSDs, also as picked up in Tom’s Hardware WRT optimization for Solid State Drives).
Around the office, many of us have been particularly interested in the features in Windows 7 to reduce writes. The article is a good read and be sure to check out the frequently asked questions: I read it with interest as I build a new Windows 7 Media Center PC (details to come) which has a 60GB SSD at its heart coupled with a low power WD Green drive for content storage. Prices are getting quite affordable for good sized SSDs (I’ve looked at 30-128GB drives and settled on a performance 60GB model) and reliability is higher than ever.
"Many of today’s Solid State Drives (SSDs) offer the promise of improved performance, more consistent responsiveness, increased battery life, superior ruggedness, quicker startup times, and noise and vibration reductions. With prices dropping precipitously, most analysts expect more and more PCs to be sold with SSDs in place of traditional rotating hard disk drives (HDDs).
"In Windows 7, we’ve focused a number of our engineering efforts with SSD operating characteristics in mind. As a result, Windows 7’s default behavior is to operate efficiently on SSDs without requiring any customer intervention. Before delving into how Windows 7’s behavior is automatically tuned to work efficiently on SSDs, a brief overview of SSD operating characteristics is warranted.
"… we believe the future of SSDs in mobile and desktop PCs (as well as enterprise servers) looks very bright to us. SSDs can deliver on the promise of improved performance, more consistent responsiveness, increased battery life, superior ruggedness, quicker startup times, and noise and vibration reductions. With prices steadily dropping and quality on the rise, we expect more and more PCs to be sold with SSDs in place of traditional rotating HDDs. With that in mind, we focused an appropriate amount of our engineering efforts towards insuring Windows 7 users have great experiences on SSDs."
Tags: articles, blogs, Windows 7.
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Of interest: reminding me of the brief series noted here, I found this article from Nicole Brodeur "Microsoft writer makes documentary on losing hand to cancer", about the film documentary from Joshua Isaac, a writer at Microsoft. Isaac lost his left hand to cancer and has been dealing with cancer – battling Epithelioid Sarcoma to be specific – for more than 10 years. He documented the battle in his movie "My Left Hand" showing this weekend in Seattle…
"My Left Hand" will be shown at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Museum of History and Industry as part of the 2009 Seattle Jewish Film Festival.
"But "My Left Hand" is not just the story of a young father felled by epithelioid sarcoma — a cancer so rare that Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, which specializes in rare malignancies, saw only 16 patients between 1982 and 1995.
"It is a valiant effort to make spiritual sense of his suffering."
You can also follow Isaac’s blog on Live Spaces.
Tags: articles, what I read.
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