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Windows 7 Training

ammalgam — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:49:12 +0000

I would like to recommend Keystone Learning Systems for comprehensive Windows 7 Training.

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Keystone Windows Training Classes

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Windows 7 Training	Office 2007 Training

Word 2007 Training	Excel 2007 Training

Outlook 2007 Training	Access 2007 Training

OneNote 2007 Training	PowerPoint 2007 Training

Project 2007 Training	FrontPage 2003 Training

Publisher 2007 Training	Visio 2007 Training

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Keystone Learning Systems is a premier source of Windows 7 Online Training.

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Win $$$ and a copy of WinX DVD Ripper Platinum

ammalgam — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:06:18 +0000

Windows7update.com and Windows8update.com are hosting a little competition.

We are trying to get some feedback from our visitors about the next version of Windows.

Head to our forums and answer the following 3 questions

1) What should the next version of Windows (Windows 8 for now) be named?

http://windows7-forum.com/windows-name-f32.html

2) What problems should this next version of Windows solve?

http://windows7-forum.com/what-problems-should-windows-solve-f33.html

3) When should Windows 8 be released and why?

http://windows7-forum.com/when-should-windows-released-f35.html

Make sure your signature is attached to each post and check back on this site to see an announcement of the winners…

Over the next 30 days, the people with the best answers to ALL 3 questions will be awarded a prize.

We will be awarding 10 prizes in total

First Prize $70 and a free license for WinX DVD Ripper Platinum
Second Prize $50 and a free license for WinX DVD Ripper Platinum
Third Prize $30 and a free license for WinX DVD Ripper Platinum

In addition to these prizes, we will give out 7 licenses for WinX DVD Ripper Platinum to the next best 7 entries.

Good luck…

Will Windows 8 even be called Windows 8?

ammalgam — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:36:22 +0000

Interesting article from Softpedia today.

There has always been speculation about exactly what the name of the new operating system from Microsoft would be after the success of Windows 7.

Obviously in light of the fact that due to it’s popularity, Windows 7 kept it’s codename and was eventually released with it, it has only been natural for people to speculate about the same thing happening with Windows 8.

The article from Softpedia may give some pause…

The details were published on a blog post from January 31st, 2010, titled “What’s in store for the next Windows.” (via ActiveWin). The post has since then been removed, but users can still access it via Google Cache and read it entirely.

Another aspect discussed in the article is the Windows 8 moniker. According to the PM, there’s little point in calling the successor of Windows 7 Windows 8, since the label is not definitive.

Steven Sinofsky, president, Windows and Windows Live Division, objected in the past to the use of Windows 8 label for Windows vNext.

And of course, there’s no guarantee that Windows 8 will be the official brand under which the next iteration of the client will be released to customers, even though codename Windows 7 ended up as Windows 7.

Source

It would definitely be interesting if they threw a curveball with this one…

What name do you think Microsoft should use for the next version of Windows?

Reports of internal bickering at Microsoft

ammalgam — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:22:39 +0000

A couple of former Microsofties are coming out of the woodwork and starting to offer constructive? criticism of the Redmond giant..

From Mary Jo Foleys blog:

Don Dodge, who was cut in the last round of Microsoft layoffs, only to resurface days later at Google as an evangelist, is extolling the virtues of Macs this week. Dick Brass, who retired from Microsoft in 2004 and was instrumental in the Tablet PC launch, is airing his grievances about what went wrong back in 2000 in an op-ed piece in the New York Times. Bill Hill, the leader of the ClearType team at Microsoft who left Microsoft last summer, has a post on his personal blog that also criticizes Microsoft’s development and commercialization processes.

Everyone is Monday morning quarterbacking about Microsoft’s level of innovation and after a spirited discussion with one of my cousins, I was fascinated with what he thought.

His position is, Microsoft make great software and make so many different products well that it is easy to overlook their successes and nit pick about one or two failures.

He points to SharePoint, Xbox Live, SQL Server, Office and the Windows suite (both client and server) as some examples of triumphs that Microsoft gets no credit for.

My other friend insists that Microsoft can do nothing right.

From their issues with the Justice department a few years ago to the Zune to Windows Vista to IE 6, there are a tone of valid items to blame the software giant for.

My position however is the following: Microsoft is a mature company that for now, doesnt seem to have a sense of direction beyond the obvious.

Of course they are going to develop Windows 8 and it will probably be great. Office 2010 is looking awesome already and I am sure Windows Server 2010 will look great too.

The problem is, those are low hanging fruit. Microsoft makes great office software. We knew that. Microsoft make good operating systems (most of the time), we knew that too.

The question is, what is the future of this company?

Bill Gates was great at articulating his vision of the future and where exactly Microsoft fit into that vision but recently, there hasnt been that clarity or articulation.

The problem isn’t that Microsoft can’t make a great browser, it’s that IE just isn’t as pleasant as Firefox or Chrome. They are not leading the way.

It’s not that they can’t make a media player device, just that the Zune is not as good as an Ipodo/Iphone.

It’s not that they can’t make a search engine…. you know the rest..

The problem is that other companies are starting to define communal problems and solve those problems (Ipad) and Microsoft seems to be predominantly attempting to play catch up.

My concern at this point is that if this continues, Windows 7 could face serious competition from Chrome OS or some other competitor. Microsoft needs a coherent sense of direction and an artful articulation of that direction a la Apple.

Steve Jobs has created the image of a company that creates items that make our lifes happier, better, more productive and fun. Even better, they solve problems before we realize they are problems.

I think Microsoft needs to figure out what their 10,000 foot message is, articulate that message and match that message with action. Otherwise, we may one day soon be talking about the Windows operating system with a 10% market share.

Windows 8 could just be a Service Pack for Windows 7

ammalgam — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:24:30 +0000

The other day I read an article that raised the possibility of something that I hadn’t considered for Windows 8.

Maybe Windows 8 could simply be a Service Pack for Windows 7.

While that may (on the surface) sound outlandish, when you think about it , it may not be that bad of an idea.

Windows 7 has been well received and the mass migration from Windows XP and Windows Vista has clearly begun.

Windows 7 is widely regarded as the best operating system that Microsoft has released to date.

So far, there haven’t been substantial complaints about the quality of Windows 7 and while there is always room for improvement, most people (myself included) would have a hard time finding a lot of things that could justify the development of a completely new O.S.

In addition, like I mentioned in my last article, the corporate world needs time to perform enterprise wide tech refreshes and time for those new installs/upgrades to settle.

The cycle of innovation mandates that a new improved version of a piece of software should be based on improving substantial flaws in the previous version.

There are not that many substantial flaws in Windows 7 yet.

Another way to go would be to look at the O.S. cycle as a 4 to 5 year cycle and incrementally release Service packs in the interim.

Windows 8 could then be a major SP for Windows 7 and the next major version of Windows could be called something different.

Just a thought..

Grow up already people, Windows 8 is not coming out next year!

ammalgam — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:55:29 +0000

I swear the blogosphere is attempting to give me a heart attack.

There have been so many reckless and irresponsible comments about Windows 8 coming out next year that it’s ridiculous.

Just google “Windows 8 2011″ and watch the nightmare unfold…

Some (maybe) Microsoft employee (may have) posted a date that (might be) the release date for Windows 8 which (seems like) 2011.

Time for grown ups to write about this. We are talking about a bunch of things here.

Enterprise Development: Anyone who has worked for a large technical company knows how difficult it is to ramp up and develop the sequel to a successful package. Takes time and lots of planning.
Umm…MSFT just launched Windows 7 a few months ago. Planning for an upgrade next year would be a little ridiculous. Like an upgrade just for the sake of upgrading.
See #2 again.
Corporate Customers: Happy with Windows 7, thrilled to abandon XP and next year you want them to do what?
What would be the main problem that Windows 8 would be solving again? What are these massive complaints we are getting from Windows 7 users that can’t be solved by a Service pack?

And on and on and on…

It’s sad to see major publications attempt to push this crap.

Windows 8 would be a disaster in 2011. There just isn’t a reason for it… (unless Chrome OS does come out in a strong way).

In that case… my bad…

SSD drives for Windows 8?

ammalgam — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:00:41 +0000

I just found this really cool article from Gizmodo about SSD’s (Solid State Drives).

The cool part is, they are talking about “Windows 8 will be even better for solid-state storage”.

What are Solid State Drives? They contrast them with regular hard drives:

On a basic level, a hard disk drive works thusly: Inside is a magnetised recording surface called a platter that spins around really fast, with a head that zooms across disk to read and write data – think kinda like a record player, except the head never touches the surface, ’cause that would be very, very bad. So, you can see the problem with hard drives: They’re fragile (don’t drop your computer) and they’re slow to access stuff because the head has to physically move to where the data is.

Solid State Drives:

With an SSD, on the other hand, we’re talking straight silicon. What’s inside is a bunch of flash memory chips and a controller running the show. There are no moving parts, so an SSD doesn’t need to start spinning, doesn’t need to physically hunt data scattered across the drive and doesn’t make a whirrrrr.

The result is that it’s crazy faster than a regular hard drive in nearly every way, so you have insanely quick boot times (an old video, but it stands), application launches, random writes and almost every other measure of drive performance (writing large files excepted). For a frame of reference, General Manager of SanDisk’s SSD group, Doron Myersdorf, says an equivalent hard drive would have to spin at almost 40,000rpm to match an SSD.

It’s a really great article.

You can check it out here

Looks like I am psychic re: my post for Windows 8 64 bit only

ammalgam — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:33:59 +0000

Seems like my last post was psychic.

I had written about how I thought it was time for Microsoft to go 64 bit only with the next version of Windows – Windows 8.

Well, I am a big fan of the site Arstechnica and the other day while surfing, here’s what I read..

Furthermore, techniques such as Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), a security technique which involves randomly arranging the positions of key data areas in memory to thwart hacking, can currently be defeated on 32-bit browsers through techniques such as heap-spraying, which some exploits use to execute arbitrary code. Malicious programs can thus fill the program’s address space with malicious code so that even if a random memory address is chosen, there is still an excellent chance that the exploit code is executed. Heap-spraying and other malware methods aren’t as viable with a large, 64-bit memory space.
Making 64-bit the default

Along with Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 hit RTM on July 22, 2009. This is the first 64-bit only Windows server operating system, and many are expecting Windows 8, which is currently slated for 2012, to be the first 64-bit only Windows client OS.

Source

Seems great minds think alike huh?

Windows 8 needs to be exclusively 64 bit…no doubt about it…

Things I would like to see in Windows 8 – Part 8 – 64 bit only

ammalgam — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:48:10 +0000

OK folks..

It’s finally time for us to move to the next level of processing – 64 bit.

PC’s are cheap enough, RAM is cheap enough.

By 2011/2012, we should be able to come together and agree that the age of 32 bit processing has come to an end.

Having said that, Microsoft will need to develop features that take advantage of the optimized processing that a 64 bit processor and way more ram can give you.

I run Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit with 8 gigs of RAM and I have to say that being able to open as many applications as I want with no concern for performance degradation is a good feeling.

That’s my take.

What do you guys and gals think?

Microsoft Exhibitors at CES – Three Screen strategy for Windows 8

ammalgam — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:13:19 +0000

In more speculative Windows 8 news, the Sunday Business Post Online is reporting that Microsoft will be pursuing a “three screen” strategy for Windows 8.

The quote:

Although an expected touch-screen tablet device from Microsoft did not materialize, details about the software giant’s next operating system, Windows 8, began to emerge at CES.

According to Microsoft exhibitors, the next operating system will feature a ‘‘three screen’’ strategy, concentrating on television, the internet and mobile devices.

Source

The article doesn’t go into more detail than that but as we all know, its ALL just speculation at this point.

Nothing to see here, keep it moving…