A FRESH smartphone war is about to break out with major
manufacturers poised to unleash a new wave of mobile technology to
convince you to update your handset before Christmas.
With Apple due to reveal two new iPhones next week, a host of launches
from big names including Samsung and Sony in Berlin last week, and
Microsoft joining the game for the first time, consumers can expect to
be spoiled for choice in the coming months.
The new generation of smartphones will eclipse technology we've seen
before, offering faster phones with thinner and lighter bodies, much
larger screens, advanced cameras, and even extras such as fingerprint
scanners and accompanying smartwatches.
The new handsets will come at a time when demand for phones has never been higher.
New research from GfK reveals smartphone shipments skyrocketed 66 per
cent in the first half of the year, with the majority - 59 per cent - of
those mobile phones now smartphones.
GfK identified at least three trends boosting their popularity, including the new size and shape of smartphones.
"Specifically, displays are becoming larger, the casing slimmer and processing power is growing significantly," its report said.
All three trends could be seen in Berlin this week at the IFA technology
tradeshow, where Samsung and Sony launched new smartphones.
The new trend for big-screen phones could be seen from both manufacturers.
A model displays the new Samsung Galaxy Gear, left, which is
connected ivy Gear Watch with the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3. (AP
Photo/Gero Breloer)
SAMSUNG
Samsung revealed the latest in its phablet (combined phone and tablet)
series, the Galaxy Note 3, with a larger, 5.7-inch screen but a slimmer,
faux leather-backed body, faster processor, more memory and new
software features.
Samsung Electronics chief executive JK Shin promised the large phone
would be "slimmer, lighter, larger, faster" with a longer lasting
battery.
The Sony Xperia Z1 smartphone with an attachable camera. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
SONY
Sony also revealed two large-screen phones in Berlin due to arrive in Australia this month.
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra features a 6.4-inch display but, despite the huge screen, its waterproof body is just 6.5mm thin.
The company's other release, the Xperia Z1, participates in another new
trend: advanced phone cameras that could compete with dedicated
snappers.
Sony's Xperia Z1 features a larger image sensor with a 20.7-megapixel resolution not usually seen inside a phone.
Sony chief executive Kazou Hirai said the inclusion boost the phone's cameras "to the level of a truly premium digital camera".
The Japanese firm also debuted two cameras that look like lenses but work with phones to produce stunning images.
The innovative QX10 and QX100 lens-shaped cameras can be clipped on to
the back of the Xperia Z1 phone, or used wirelessly, and both feature
zoom lenses and image sensors typically found in expensive cameras.
But Sony's products will compete for users with Nokia's newly launched flagship phone.
The logo of Finnish mobile manufacturer "Nokia" and US multinational
software company "Microsoft" are seen on the display of the Lumia 1020
Windows smart phone. Picture: ODD ANDERSEN
NOKIA
The Lumia 1020 features a 41-megapixel camera sensor, along with other
features typically seen in dedicated cameras, such as manual controls
and optical image stabilisation.
With the Finnish phone maker bought by Microsoft for $US7.2 billion this
week, analysts are expecting even more innovation from the
once-powerful phone company.
But the new partnership, and other incoming smartphones, will have to
compete with the Apple behemoth, with two new iPhones expected in the
wee hours of Wednesday morning.
Apple is expected to release a new range of iPhones and iPads within weeks. AFP
APPLE
While Apple has yet to comment on the widespread rumours and alleged
photo leaks, experts are expecting to see two iPhones revealed at its
Cupertino headquarters this week: a new flagship iPhone and a budget
smartphone, possibly called the iPhone 5C.
The latter model is expected to arrive in a colourful, plastic case but basic features.
The top model, possibly called the iPhone 5S, is rumoured to feature a
larger screen, faster processor, 12-megapixel camera, and a fingerprint
scanner for added security.
The rumours about the fingerprint reader began after Apple's purchase of AuthenTec, and could be embedded in its home button.
Intel is acknowledging the changing face and internal functions of the
data center with a new initiative designed to re-architect the
underlying infrastructure, allowing companies and end users to adapt
their data centers to a more services- and mobility-oriented
environment.
The strategy, as laid out at its Datacenter Day event held in late July
and hosted by several Intel executives, is for automation and speed to
replace manual, time-consuming and often fixed functions, each with
their own independent configuration, said Diane Bryant, senior vice
president and general manager of the Datacenter and Connected Systems
Group at Intel.
"Today, the network is still manually configured. The process to
reconfigure a new network to support the service is a manual process
that can take weeks," said Bryant. With the virtualized,
software-defined network, the time to provision software and hardware on
a new service can be reduced to just minutes.
She also noted that data storage continues to grow at a 40% compound
annual growth rate, with 90% of it unstructured. She cited an IBM study
that found businesses store on average 18 copies of the same piece of
data. "That actually sounds quite logical having run IT for four years,"
joked Bryant, who was previously CIO of Intel.
Finally, she noted that even with virtualization, server capacity is
barely at 50%. "That means 50% of server capacity is unused, which is a
true crime," said Bryant.
We see traction around software-defined data centers and Intel has
plenty of software capabilities in terms of programming into the chips.
They can help to define software definitions and that underlying layer
in the data center.
To solve this, Intel is looking to rearchitect not just servers but the
network for cloud services, and plans to do this via software-defined
networks. "Software-defined networks allow us to extract the control
function out of the switch, run it globally, run it on standard high
volume Intel hardware as just another app running on your Intel
architecture. That drives up the utilization and drives down the capital
expense through the movement off proprietary servers," said Bryant.
Intel wants to help companies move beyond the standard generation of
data centers by offering what it calls the Rack Scale Architecture
(RSA), which will virtualize the whole network and every component in
it. An application will assemble the CPU, memory, storage and networking
it needs from the pool of assembled hardware and build its own virtual
server, storage and network.
Why is Intel doing this?
Intel is a chip company yet it's taking charge of a component of
downstream technology, the server architecture. For Intel to get into
server, network and storage architecture would like Qualcomm, the
dominant player in mobile phone chips, deciding the cellular networks
are not being well managed by Verizon, AT&T, etc., and it was going
to do something about it.
The problem is the big server vendors aren't taking charge. They are
distracted to some degree or another. CEO Meg Whitman is slowly righting
the ship of HP but that company took a severe body blow in recent
years. Dell is in even worse shape with its lingering privatization
plans, and IBM isn't interested in the x86 business because it tried to
sell the System x business to Lenovo but the two couldn't reach a price
agreement.
Nature and business abhors a vacuum and Intel is stepping in. And as
Nathan Brookwood, research fellow with Insight64 noted, it's happened
before with great success.
"Intel is acting as a leader and there is nothing wrong with Intel
picking up the leadership mantle and moving forward. They did it in the
past. Who drove WiFi into mass market? It was Intel with Centrino.
Before that, WiFi was a curiosity. It took Intel putting Centrino with
WiFi in every laptop to make it popular. They also did it with USB and
PCI Express," Brookwood said.
Christian Perry, senior analyst for data centers at Technology Business
Research, agreed. "They see an opportunity, it's theirs for the taking
to define that leadership role. They've probably had that opportunity in
the past few years, but why now? We see traction around
software-defined data centers and Intel has plenty of software
capabilities in terms of programming into the chips. They can help to
define software definitions and that underlying layer in the data
center," Perry said.
Not only is Intel taking a role that should fall to hardware vendors, it
is also taking on the job of defining a software-defined data center,
something you'd expect from VMware, Citrix or Microsoft, noted Perry.
"They have a very well-orchestrated definition behind software-defined
anything or everything. I never heard a more sensible approach in terms
of explaining how everything can work in a software-defined data center.
We hear things from EMC and VMware, but Intel really sees the big
picture and they should see the big picture because their chips are
running the big picture," Perry said.
Quietly building the infrastructure
So it remains to be seen if Intel can do for software-defined networks
what it did for WiFi, but it sure will try. Without a lot of hoopla,
Intel has made some major moves into networking infrastructure. Intel
has introduced Open Network Platform reference designs to help OEMs
build and deploy a new generation of networks that it says will maximize
bandwidth, reduce costs, and offer flexibility to support new services.
In April 2013, Intel introduced three platforms for software defined
networking and network function virtualization: the Open Network
Platform Switch Reference Design (ONPS); the Data Plane Development Kit
(DPDK) Accelerated Open vSwitch; and the Intel Open Network Platform
Server Reference Design.
ONPS allows for automated network management, and coordination between
the server switching elements and network switches. The DPDK will
improve small packet throughput and workload performance, while the Open
Network Platform Server Reference Design, previously codenamed "Sunrise
Trail," is based on Intel chips and Wind River software. Intel acquired
Wind River in 2009.
These are not new efforts. Intel has been working on them for years and
claims customers for this technology include including HP, NEC, NTT
Data, Quanta, Super Micro, VMware and Vyatta (a Brocade company).
New edge servers (a recap)
In a departure from traditional Intel operating procedure, the company
plans to offer custom chips to big customers. Already Facebook and
eBay will get custom low-end Xeon E3 processors in a system-on-a-chip
(SoC) design, and there will be more. Expect more of this, said Jason
Waxman, general manager of the Cloud Computing Platforms Group at Intel.
At the event, Waxman introduced the Atom C2000, an eight-core processor,
known by its codename "Avoton." It will come with an encryption
acceleration network device codenamed "Rangeley" as well as with many
Xeon features, such as error code correction (ECC), Intel Virtualization
Technology and 64GB of memory capacity.
In short, it looks a lot like a Xeon, and that's no accident. "People
want consistency. They want 64 bits and software compatibility and error
correction code even on the low end," said Waxman.
He also announced a future chip based on the Xeon E3 design but will use
a system-on-a-chip (SoC) design instead of the usual discrete design
for Xeon servers, which involves several chips on the server board. A
Xeon SoC means much lower power consumption and smaller motherboards,
since fewer chips are used. The Xeon SoC will be introduced next year
with the Broadwell generation of processors. Broadwell will be the
current Haswell architecture, built on a 22nm design process, shrunk to
14nm.
That the first customers for this chip are Facebook and eBay is no
coincidence. Consumer networks like those use thousands of edge servers
to handle their millions of visitors at any given moment and to serve up
HTML pages generated on the back end. It has slowly dawned on server
vendors that using a powerful processor such as Xeon E5, or even an E3,
for a server that simply handles Web connections and spits out HTML
pages is overkill. The Atom (and ARM) is more than adequate for that
task.
That was the appeal of using Atom and ARM processors in ultra-dense edge
servers such as HP's new Project Moonshot and the 10u server from
startup SeaMicro, which AMD acquired in 2012. Both make the same point:
save your Xeons for the database work and let a chip that uses a
fraction of the power to pump out HTML pages.
Perry says that edge servers are a new market for Intel and the industry at large. Not a huge one but a new one nonetheless.
"Microservers won't be huge for revenue but Intel will play in that
market. It will be a while before that market grows out. Customers are
still in a wait and see mode on microservers," said Perry.
Customers may be waiting but the vendors are not. AMD made its move with
the acquisition of SeaMicro, which makes ultra-dense servers using
Intel's Atom processors. AMD will eventually put its own chips in those
servers. HP has Project Moonshot servers using an ARM-based processor
designed by Calxeda.
So Intel doesn't want to be left out. "Intel wants to be a part of that
market but it's more of a 'We'll provide anything you need for your
workload environments' strategy," said Perry.
(Reuters) - Some of the world's biggest Internet companies on Monday
increased efforts to disclose more about their forced cooperation with
U.S. spy agencies, and Google Inc asked a court to hold what would be
unprecedented public oral arguments.
Google Inc (GOOG.O), Facebook Inc (FB.O)
and others met with a panel established by the White House to review
the sweeping domestic surveillance exposed by Edward Snowden, a former
contractor at the National Security Agency.
Separately, Google asked the secret court that approves spying requests
for a public hearing on their quest to reveal how many orders the
company complies with. Facebook and Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O)
made their own first filings on Monday seeking the ability to disclose
more about the orders following Google and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) filings in June.
Google's new court filing adds to its earlier petition. It complains
that its reputation and business have been damaged by what it says were
misleading reports that the NSA had "direct access" to its internal
servers. The companies have denied those reports, and most now publish
summaries that give the number of all the government requests they
receive.
Most lump together foreign intelligence demands with routine criminal
inquiries, though Google says it receives fewer than 1,000 National
Security Letters per year, affecting fewer than 2,000 accounts.
The companies want to say more, and Google argues that its First
Amendment right to speak out, especially on a matter of great political
and public importance, outweighs any harm to intelligence efforts that
would come from releasing more detailed but still aggregate statistics.
"The government has identified no statute or regulation that prohibits
such disclosure, and it is not appropriate for this court to undertake
the essentially legislative function of creating such a prohibition,"
Google wrote in its filing with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court.
The court, whose members are appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court chief
justice, has never held a public session and generally hears only from
the U.S. Justice Department and intelligence agency lawyers.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
Google's move follows its confirmation that it is moving more quickly to encrypt data as it moves internally at the company.
On Sunday, Brazilian television cited new Snowden documents in reporting
that the NSA has tried to attack Google or at least intercept
communications from its users to the company.
The panel established by the White House, called The Review Group on
Intelligence and Communications Technology, was charged with
recommending how to balance security and privacy concerns. President
Barack Obama met with the new group on August 27. It is to provide an
interim report within two months.
Whether you've just bought a second-hand PC running Windows 7 or you've been using it for a while, there are bound to be things you didn't know you could do.
Whether
it's tweaks to get the desktop the way you want it, tips for
troubleshooting or ways to squeeze more performance from Windows 7,
we've got it covered.
We've
updated our popular Windows 7 tips article with a load of new ones,
including how to recover and reset your system, how to tweak your screen
resolution and the legibility of text, play music on a network of PCs,
and more.
Read on for over 90 tips to help you get the best from Windows 7.
1. Problem Steps Recorder
As the local PC guru you're
probably very used to friends and family asking for help with their
computer problems, yet having no idea how to clearly describe what's
going on. It's frustrating, but Microsoft feels your pain, and Windows 7
will include an excellent new solution in the Problem Steps Recorder.
When
any app starts misbehaving under Windows 7 then all your friends need
do is click Start, type PSR and press Enter, then click Start Record. If
they then work through whatever they're doing then the Problem Steps
Recorder will record every click and keypress, take screen grabs, and
package everything up into a single zipped MHTML file when they're
finished, ready for emailing to you. It's quick, easy and effective, and
will save you hours of troubleshooting time.
2. Burn images
Windows 7 finally introduces a feature that
other operating systems have had for years - the ability to burn ISO
images to CDs or DVDs. And it couldn't be much easier to use. Just
double-click the ISO image, choose the drive with the blank disc, click
Burn and watch as your disc is created.
3. Create and mount VHD files
Microsoft's
Virtual PC creates its virtual machine hard drives in VHD files, and
Windows 7 can now mount these directly so you can access them in the
host system. Click Start, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter, then click
Action > Attach VHD and choose the file you'd like to mount. It will
then appear as a virtual drive in Explorer and can be accessed, copied
or written just like any other drive.
Click Action > Create VHD
and you can now create a new virtual drive of your own (right-click it,
select Initialise Disk, and after it's set up right-click the
unallocated space and select New Simple Volume to set this up). Again,
you'll be left with a virtual drive that behaves just like any other,
where you can drag and drop files, install programs, test partitioning
software or do whatever you like. But it's actually just this VHD file
on your real hard drive which you can easily back up or share with
others. Right-click the disk (that's the left-hand label that says "Disk
2" or whatever) and select Detach VHD to remove it.
The command
line DISKPART utility has also been upgraded with tools to detach a VHD
file, and an EXPAND command to increase a virtual disk's maximum size.
Don't play around with this unless you know what you're doing, though -
it's all too easy to trash your system.
4. Troubleshoot problems
If
some part of Windows 7 is behaving strangely, and you don't know why,
then click Control Panel > Find and fix problems (or
'Troubleshooting') to access the new troubleshooting packs. These are
simple wizards that will resolve common problems, check your settings,
clean up your system and more.
5. Startup repair
If you've downloaded Windows 7 (and even if
you haven't) it's a good idea to create a system repair disc straight
away in case you run into problems booting the OS later on. Click Start
> Maintenance > Create a System Repair Disc, and let Windows 7
build a bootable emergency disc. If the worst does happen then it could
be the only way to get your PC running again.
6. Take control
Tired
of the kids installing dubious software or running applications you'd
rather they left alone? AppLocker is a new Windows 7 feature that
ensures users can only run the programs you specify. Don't worry, that's
easier to set up than it sounds: you can create a rule to allow
everything signed by a particular publisher, so choose Microsoft, say,
and that one rule will let you run all signed Microsoft applications.
Launch GPEDIT.MSC and go to Computer Configuration > Windows Settings
> Security Settings > Application Control Policies > AppLocker
to get a feel for how this works.
7. Calculate more
At first glance the Windows 7 calculator
looks just like Vista's version, but explore the Mode menu and you'll
see powerful new Statistics and Programmer views. And if you're clueless
about bitwise manipulation, then try the Options menu instead. This
offers many different unit conversions (length, weight, volume and
more), date calculations (how many days between two dates?), and
spreadsheet-type templates to help you calculate vehicle mileage,
mortgage rates and more.
Don't take any Windows 7 applet at face
value, then - there are some very powerful new features hidden in the
background. Be sure to explore every option in all Windows applets to
ensure you don't miss anything important.
8. Switch to a projector
Windows 7 now provides a standard
way to switch your display from one monitor to another, or a projector -
just press Win+P or run DisplaySwitch.exe and choose your preferred
display. (This will have no effect if you've only one display
connected.)
9. Get a power efficiency report
If you have a
laptop, you can use the efficiency calculator to get Windows 7 to
generate loads of useful information about its power consumption. Used
in the right way, this can help you make huge gains in terms of battery
life and performance. To do this you must open a command prompt as an
administrator by typing 'cmd' in Start Search, and when the cmd icon
appears, right-click it and choose Run as administrator.
Then at
the command line, just type in 'powercfg -energy' (without quotes) and
hit Return, and Windows 7 will scan your system looking for ways to
improve power efficiency. It will then publish the results in an HTML
file, usually in the System32 folder. Just follow the path it gives you
to find your report.
Windows 7 is easy to customise with your favourite kitty pictures
Whether you've just bought a second-hand PC running Windows 7 or you've been using it for a while, there are bound to be things you didn't know you could do.
Whether
it's tweaks to get the desktop the way you want it, tips for
troubleshooting or ways to squeeze more performance from Windows 7,
we've got it covered.
We've
updated our popular Windows 7 tips article with a load of new ones,
including how to recover and reset your system, how to tweak your screen
resolution and the legibility of text, play music on a network of PCs,
and more.
Read on for over 90 tips to help you get the best from Windows 7.
1. Problem Steps Recorder
As
the local PC guru you're probably very used to friends and family
asking for help with their computer problems, yet having no idea how to
clearly describe what's going on. It's frustrating, but Microsoft feels
your pain, and Windows 7 will include an excellent new solution in the
Problem Steps Recorder.
When any app starts misbehaving under
Windows 7 then all your friends need do is click Start, type PSR and
press Enter, then click Start Record. If they then work through whatever
they're doing then the Problem Steps Recorder will record every click
and keypress, take screen grabs, and package everything up into a single
zipped MHTML file when they're finished, ready for emailing to you.
It's quick, easy and effective, and will save you hours of
troubleshooting time.
Windows
7 finally introduces a feature that other operating systems have had
for years - the ability to burn ISO images to CDs or DVDs. And it
couldn't be much easier to use. Just double-click the ISO image, choose
the drive with the blank disc, click Burn and watch as your disc is
created.
3. Create and mount VHD files
Microsoft's Virtual
PC creates its virtual machine hard drives in VHD files, and Windows 7
can now mount these directly so you can access them in the host system.
Click Start, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter, then click Action >
Attach VHD and choose the file you'd like to mount. It will then appear
as a virtual drive in Explorer and can be accessed, copied or written
just like any other drive.
Click Action > Create VHD and you
can now create a new virtual drive of your own (right-click it, select
Initialise Disk, and after it's set up right-click the unallocated space
and select New Simple Volume to set this up). Again, you'll be left
with a virtual drive that behaves just like any other, where you can
drag and drop files, install programs, test partitioning software or do
whatever you like. But it's actually just this VHD file on your real
hard drive which you can easily back up or share with others.
Right-click the disk (that's the left-hand label that says "Disk 2" or
whatever) and select Detach VHD to remove it.
The command line
DISKPART utility has also been upgraded with tools to detach a VHD file,
and an EXPAND command to increase a virtual disk's maximum size. Don't
play around with this unless you know what you're doing, though - it's
all too easy to trash your system.
4. Troubleshoot problems
If
some part of Windows 7 is behaving strangely, and you don't know why,
then click Control Panel > Find and fix problems (or
'Troubleshooting') to access the new troubleshooting packs. These are
simple wizards that will resolve common problems, check your settings,
clean up your system and more.
5. Startup repair
If
you've downloaded Windows 7 (and even if you haven't) it's a good idea
to create a system repair disc straight away in case you run into
problems booting the OS later on. Click Start > Maintenance >
Create a System Repair Disc, and let Windows 7 build a bootable
emergency disc. If the worst does happen then it could be the only way
to get your PC running again.
6. Take control
Tired of the
kids installing dubious software or running applications you'd rather
they left alone? AppLocker is a new Windows 7 feature that ensures users
can only run the programs you specify. Don't worry, that's easier to
set up than it sounds: you can create a rule to allow everything signed
by a particular publisher, so choose Microsoft, say, and that one rule
will let you run all signed Microsoft applications. Launch GPEDIT.MSC
and go to Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security
Settings > Application Control Policies > AppLocker to get a feel
for how this works.
7. Calculate more
At first glance the
Windows 7 calculator looks just like Vista's version, but explore the
Mode menu and you'll see powerful new Statistics and Programmer views.
And if you're clueless about bitwise manipulation, then try the Options
menu instead. This offers many different unit conversions (length,
weight, volume and more), date calculations (how many days between two
dates?), and spreadsheet-type templates to help you calculate vehicle
mileage, mortgage rates and more.
Don't take any Windows 7 applet
at face value, then - there are some very powerful new features hidden
in the background. Be sure to explore every option in all Windows
applets to ensure you don't miss anything important.
The new Calculator is packed with useful features and functionality
8. Switch to a projector
Windows
7 now provides a standard way to switch your display from one monitor
to another, or a projector - just press Win+P or run DisplaySwitch.exe
and choose your preferred display. (This will have no effect if you've
only one display connected.)
9. Get a power efficiency report
If
you have a laptop, you can use the efficiency calculator to get Windows
7 to generate loads of useful information about its power consumption.
Used in the right way, this can help you make huge gains in terms of
battery life and performance. To do this you must open a command prompt
as an administrator by typing 'cmd' in Start Search, and when the cmd
icon appears, right-click it and choose Run as administrator.
Then
at the command line, just type in 'powercfg -energy' (without quotes)
and hit Return, and Windows 7 will scan your system looking for ways to
improve power efficiency. It will then publish the results in an HTML
file, usually in the System32 folder. Just follow the path it gives you
to find your report.
10. Understanding System Restore
Using
System Restore in previous versions of Windows has been something of a
gamble. There's no way of telling which applications or drivers it might
affect - you just have to try it and see.
Windows 7 is different.
Right-click Computer, select Properties > System Protection >
System Restore > Next, and choose the restore point you'd like to
use. Click the new button to 'Scan for affected programs' and Windows
will tell you which (if any) programs and drivers will be deleted or
recovered by selecting this restore point. (Read our full Windows 7 System Restore tutorial.)
11. Set the time zone
System administrators will appreciate
the new command line tzutil.exe utility, which lets you set a PC's time
zone from scripts. If you wanted to set a PC to Greenwich Mean Time, for
instance, you'd use the command
tzutil /s "gmt standard time"
The
command "tzutil /g" displays the current time zone, "tzutil /l" lists
all possible time zones, and "tzutil /?" displays details on how the
command works.
12. Easily set screen resolution
Choosing a
new screen resolution used to involve locating and browsing through the
Display Properties applet. Windows 7 made this far simpler, though -
just right-click an empty part of the desktop, select Screen Resolution
and you'll immediately see the appropriate options.
13. Calibrate your screen
The
colours you see on your screen will vary depending on your monitor,
graphics cards settings, lighting and more, yet most people use the same
default Windows colour profile. And that means a digital photo you
think looks perfect might appear very poor to everybody else.
Fortunately Windows 7 now provides a Display Colour Calibration Wizard
that helps you properly set up your brightness, contrast and colour
settings, and a ClearType tuner to ensure text is crisp and sharp. Click
Start, type DCCW and press Enter to give it a try.
14. Clean up Live Essentials
Installing Windows Live
Essentials will get you the new versions of Mail, Movie Maker, Photo
Gallery and others - great. Unfortunately it also includes other
components that may be unnecessary, but if you like to keep a clean
system then these can be quickly removed.
If you left the default
Set Your Search Provider option selected during installation, for
instance, Windows Live will install Choice Guard, a tool to set your
browser home page and search engine, and prevent other programs from
changing them. If this causes problems later, or you just decide you
don't need it, then Choice Guard may be removed by clicking Start,
typing msiexec /x {F0E12BBA-AD66-4022-A453-A1C8A0C4D570} and pressing
[Enter].
Windows Live Essentials also adds an ActiveX Control to
help upload your files to Windows Live SkyDrive, as well as the Windows
Live Sign-in Assistant, which makes it easier to manage and switch
between multiple Windows Live accounts. If you're sure you'll never need
either then remove them with the Control Panel Uninstall a Program
applet.
15. Add network support
By default Windows Live
MovieMaker won't let you import files over a network, but a quick
Registry tweak will change this. Run REGEDIT, browse to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live\Movie Maker, add a
DWORD value called AllowNetworkFiles and set it to 1 to add network
support.
Windows 7 is easy to customise with your favourite kitty pictures
Whether you've just bought a second-hand PC running Windows 7 or you've been using it for a while, there are bound to be things you didn't know you could do.
Whether
it's tweaks to get the desktop the way you want it, tips for
troubleshooting or ways to squeeze more performance from Windows 7,
we've got it covered.
We've
updated our popular Windows 7 tips article with a load of new ones,
including how to recover and reset your system, how to tweak your screen
resolution and the legibility of text, play music on a network of PCs,
and more.
Read on for over 90 tips to help you get the best from Windows 7.
1. Problem Steps Recorder
As
the local PC guru you're probably very used to friends and family
asking for help with their computer problems, yet having no idea how to
clearly describe what's going on. It's frustrating, but Microsoft feels
your pain, and Windows 7 will include an excellent new solution in the
Problem Steps Recorder.
When any app starts misbehaving under
Windows 7 then all your friends need do is click Start, type PSR and
press Enter, then click Start Record. If they then work through whatever
they're doing then the Problem Steps Recorder will record every click
and keypress, take screen grabs, and package everything up into a single
zipped MHTML file when they're finished, ready for emailing to you.
It's quick, easy and effective, and will save you hours of
troubleshooting time.
Windows
7 finally introduces a feature that other operating systems have had
for years - the ability to burn ISO images to CDs or DVDs. And it
couldn't be much easier to use. Just double-click the ISO image, choose
the drive with the blank disc, click Burn and watch as your disc is
created.
3. Create and mount VHD files
Microsoft's Virtual
PC creates its virtual machine hard drives in VHD files, and Windows 7
can now mount these directly so you can access them in the host system.
Click Start, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter, then click Action >
Attach VHD and choose the file you'd like to mount. It will then appear
as a virtual drive in Explorer and can be accessed, copied or written
just like any other drive.
Click Action > Create VHD and you
can now create a new virtual drive of your own (right-click it, select
Initialise Disk, and after it's set up right-click the unallocated space
and select New Simple Volume to set this up). Again, you'll be left
with a virtual drive that behaves just like any other, where you can
drag and drop files, install programs, test partitioning software or do
whatever you like. But it's actually just this VHD file on your real
hard drive which you can easily back up or share with others.
Right-click the disk (that's the left-hand label that says "Disk 2" or
whatever) and select Detach VHD to remove it.
The command line
DISKPART utility has also been upgraded with tools to detach a VHD file,
and an EXPAND command to increase a virtual disk's maximum size. Don't
play around with this unless you know what you're doing, though - it's
all too easy to trash your system.
4. Troubleshoot problems
If
some part of Windows 7 is behaving strangely, and you don't know why,
then click Control Panel > Find and fix problems (or
'Troubleshooting') to access the new troubleshooting packs. These are
simple wizards that will resolve common problems, check your settings,
clean up your system and more.
5. Startup repair
If
you've downloaded Windows 7 (and even if you haven't) it's a good idea
to create a system repair disc straight away in case you run into
problems booting the OS later on. Click Start > Maintenance >
Create a System Repair Disc, and let Windows 7 build a bootable
emergency disc. If the worst does happen then it could be the only way
to get your PC running again.
6. Take control
Tired of the
kids installing dubious software or running applications you'd rather
they left alone? AppLocker is a new Windows 7 feature that ensures users
can only run the programs you specify. Don't worry, that's easier to
set up than it sounds: you can create a rule to allow everything signed
by a particular publisher, so choose Microsoft, say, and that one rule
will let you run all signed Microsoft applications. Launch GPEDIT.MSC
and go to Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security
Settings > Application Control Policies > AppLocker to get a feel
for how this works.
7. Calculate more
At first glance the
Windows 7 calculator looks just like Vista's version, but explore the
Mode menu and you'll see powerful new Statistics and Programmer views.
And if you're clueless about bitwise manipulation, then try the Options
menu instead. This offers many different unit conversions (length,
weight, volume and more), date calculations (how many days between two
dates?), and spreadsheet-type templates to help you calculate vehicle
mileage, mortgage rates and more.
Don't take any Windows 7 applet
at face value, then - there are some very powerful new features hidden
in the background. Be sure to explore every option in all Windows
applets to ensure you don't miss anything important.
The new Calculator is packed with useful features and functionality
8. Switch to a projector
Windows
7 now provides a standard way to switch your display from one monitor
to another, or a projector - just press Win+P or run DisplaySwitch.exe
and choose your preferred display. (This will have no effect if you've
only one display connected.)
9. Get a power efficiency report
If
you have a laptop, you can use the efficiency calculator to get Windows
7 to generate loads of useful information about its power consumption.
Used in the right way, this can help you make huge gains in terms of
battery life and performance. To do this you must open a command prompt
as an administrator by typing 'cmd' in Start Search, and when the cmd
icon appears, right-click it and choose Run as administrator.
Then
at the command line, just type in 'powercfg -energy' (without quotes)
and hit Return, and Windows 7 will scan your system looking for ways to
improve power efficiency. It will then publish the results in an HTML
file, usually in the System32 folder. Just follow the path it gives you
to find your report.
10. Understanding System Restore
Using
System Restore in previous versions of Windows has been something of a
gamble. There's no way of telling which applications or drivers it might
affect - you just have to try it and see.
Windows 7 is different.
Right-click Computer, select Properties > System Protection >
System Restore > Next, and choose the restore point you'd like to
use. Click the new button to 'Scan for affected programs' and Windows
will tell you which (if any) programs and drivers will be deleted or
recovered by selecting this restore point. (Read our full Windows 7 System Restore tutorial.)
11. Set the time zone
System
administrators will appreciate the new command line tzutil.exe utility,
which lets you set a PC's time zone from scripts. If you wanted to set a
PC to Greenwich Mean Time, for instance, you'd use the command
tzutil /s "gmt standard time"
The
command "tzutil /g" displays the current time zone, "tzutil /l" lists
all possible time zones, and "tzutil /?" displays details on how the
command works.
12. Easily set screen resolution
Choosing a
new screen resolution used to involve locating and browsing through the
Display Properties applet. Windows 7 made this far simpler, though -
just right-click an empty part of the desktop, select Screen Resolution
and you'll immediately see the appropriate options.
13. Calibrate your screen
The
colours you see on your screen will vary depending on your monitor,
graphics cards settings, lighting and more, yet most people use the same
default Windows colour profile. And that means a digital photo you
think looks perfect might appear very poor to everybody else.
Fortunately Windows 7 now provides a Display Colour Calibration Wizard
that helps you properly set up your brightness, contrast and colour
settings, and a ClearType tuner to ensure text is crisp and sharp. Click
Start, type DCCW and press Enter to give it a try.
14. Clean up Live Essentials
Installing
Windows Live Essentials will get you the new versions of Mail, Movie
Maker, Photo Gallery and others - great. Unfortunately it also includes
other components that may be unnecessary, but if you like to keep a
clean system then these can be quickly removed.
If you left the
default Set Your Search Provider option selected during installation,
for instance, Windows Live will install Choice Guard, a tool to set your
browser home page and search engine, and prevent other programs from
changing them. If this causes problems later, or you just decide you
don't need it, then Choice Guard may be removed by clicking Start,
typing msiexec /x {F0E12BBA-AD66-4022-A453-A1C8A0C4D570} and pressing
[Enter].
Windows Live Essentials also adds an ActiveX Control to
help upload your files to Windows Live SkyDrive, as well as the Windows
Live Sign-in Assistant, which makes it easier to manage and switch
between multiple Windows Live accounts. If you're sure you'll never need
either then remove them with the Control Panel Uninstall a Program
applet.
15. Add network support
By default Windows Live
MovieMaker won't let you import files over a network, but a quick
Registry tweak will change this. Run REGEDIT, browse to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live\Movie Maker, add a
DWORD value called AllowNetworkFiles and set it to 1 to add network
support.
16. Activate XP mode
If you've got old but
important software that no longer runs under Windows 7, then you could
try using XP Mode, a virtual copy of XP that runs in a window on your
Windows 7 desktop. This only works with Windows 7 Professional,
Enterprise, or Ultimate. And your system will need to have hardware
virtualisation (AMD-V or Intel VT) built in and turned on, too (check
your Bios to make sure).
An alternative is to use VirtualBox, a
free virtualisation tool that doesn't insist on hardware support, but
you will need to find a licensed copy of XP (or whatever other Windows
version your software requires) for its virtual machine.
17. Enable virtual Wi-Fi
Windows 7 includes a little-known
new feature called Virtual Wi-Fi, which effectively turns your PC or
laptop into a software-based router. Any other Wi-Fi-enabled devices
within range - a desktop, laptop, an iPod perhaps - will see you as a
new network and, once logged on, immediately be able to share your
internet connection.
This will only work if your wireless adapter
driver supports it, though, and not all do. Check with your adapter
manufacturer and make sure you've installed the very latest drivers to
give you the best chance.
Once you have driver support then the easiest approach is to get a network tool that can set up virtual Wi-Fi for you. Virtual Router (below) is free, easy to use and should have you sharing your internet connection very quickly.
If you don't mind working with the command line, though, maybe setting
up some batch files or scripts, then it's not that difficult to set this
up manually. See Turn your Windows 7 laptop into a wireless hotspot for more.
18. Recover locked-up apps
If an application locks up under a
previous version of Windows then there was nothing you could do about
it. A new Windows 7 option, however, can not only explain the problem,
but may get your program working again without any loss of data.
When the lockup occurs, click Start, type RESMON and click the RESMON.EXE link to launch the Resource Monitor.
Find your frozen process in the CPU pane (it should be highlighted in red), right-click it and select Analyze Wait Chain.
If
you see at least two processes in the list, then the lowest, at the end
of the tree, is the one holding up your program. If it's not a vital
Windows component, or anything else critical, then save any work in
other open applications, check the box next to this process, click End
Process, and your locked-up program will often spring back to life.
19. Fault-Tolerant Help
Windows 7 includes a new feature
called the Fault Tolerant Help (FTH), a clever technology that looks out
for unstable processes, detects those that may be crashing due to
memory issues, and applies several real-time fixes to try and help. If
these work, that's fine - if not, the fixes will be undone and they
won't be applied to that process again.
While this is very good in
theory, it can leave you confused as some applications crash, then
start working (sometimes) for no apparent reason. So if you'd like to
check if the FTH is running on your PC, launch REGEDIT, and go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\FTH - any program currently being
protected by the FTH will be listed in the State key.
Experienced
users may also try tweaking the FTH settings to catch more problems, and
perhaps improve system stability. A post on Microsoft's Ask The
Performance Team blog (bit.ly/d1JStu) explains what the various FTH
Registry keys mean.
20. Control devices and printers
Device
Manager is a powerful tool for managing hardware, but it's also rather
technical and intimidating, which is probably why Windows 7 has
introduced a more basic alternative in the Devices and Printers applet.
The
first improvement is purely visual, with lengthy and cryptic device
names replaced by large icons for major hardware items only (monitor,
mouse, hard drive, printer and so on).
The new applet can also
save you time, though, by providing a quick and easy way to access
relevant functions for each device. If you've got some printer-related
issue, say, right-clicking your printer icon displays a list of useful
options - See What's Printing, Printer Preferences, Printer Properties,
Delete Printer Queue and more - and all you have to do is select
whatever you need.
21. Automatically switch your default printer
Windows
7's location-aware printing allows the operating system to
automatically switch your default printer as you move from one network
to another.
To set this up, first click Start, type Devices, and click the Devices and Printers link.
Select
a printer and click Manage Default Printers (this is only visible on a
mobile device, like a laptop - you won't see it on a PC).
Choose
the Change My Default Printer When I Change Networks option, select a
network, the default printer you'd like to use, and click Add.
Repeat the process for other networks available, and pick a default printer for each one.
And
now, as you connect to a new network, Windows 7 will check this list
and set the default printer to the one that you've defined.
After in the last posting this time I will sharing about some problems in computer as computer hang, computer bluescreen, computer can't booting and computer restart itself. So that, in this post I will discuss about 10 things that could the computer to low along the way to fix them.
Here are10causes ofslowcomputersandhow to overcome them.
1. Computer slow because of lack of Memory Slow computer problems due to lack of installed RAM is generally already known by all computer users. For that try to check the installed memory capacity, for the Intel Pentium 4 class computer with Windows XP OS and application upgrades was the one standard should be a minimum of 1 GB of memory.
2. Computer slow because too many programs installed. Personally I often find computers,especially personal property which are installed a variety of programs in it, but the application is rarely or never used at all. Examine what programs are installed in computer by clicking the Add/ Remove Control Panel Program and un-install programs that simply being "accesories" is.
3.Computerslowbecausetoomanystartupprogramsand services running. This is related topoint No.2, the more programsinstalled, the moreprogramandservicethatwillrunwhen windowsstartup.
Todisablestartupprogramsand services runningthatautomatically, goto the"System ConfigurationUtility" by typing: msconfigin the run menu, then on theservicetabanduncheckthestartupdoapplications thatare notneeded.
Tosee what applicationsare running,wecanusetoolProsesexplorer. With this toolwecanseeanddisable(kill) any applications thatare notneededorsuspectedvirus.
Toclean it, deletethe onethatcontainedthe filesin both locationsorrunDiskCleanUpprogrambyclick start-run, type: "cleanmgr" and selectthe drivethat you want tocleanup.
5.Computerslowbecausetoomanyprogramsthat serve as"security program" Securityprogramssuch asantivirusprogramsandfirewallsis anadditionalapplicationthatmustexiston the computer, butdo not betoo overwhelmingfor exampleby installingan antivirusprogramat a time2-3.
Windowsforsecurityissues, the most important thingis to doupdates, enable the firewallanduseantivirusthat does not burdenPCMAVcomputersuch asantivirusandbe carefulwhenusing aUSB stick/MemoryCard.
6.Computerslowbecause ofproblemson the hard drive Hard driveis thesecondcomponent ofthe RAMwhichcancausea slow computer. Slow computerproblemscaused bythehard drivesuchas: -Lowdiskspace -The hard drive isfragmented -The hard drive isalreadylong, soitdecreasesrpm -Diskerror/bad sector
7.Slowcomputerbecause of a virus, malwareorspywareonyour computer. Whenwehave firstcomputervirusormalware, then you shouldrun theWindows SafeMode, turn offsystem restoreanduse thefacilitiesprogramssuch asVirus CleanerNorman MalwareCleanerto cleanthevirusormalwareanddoing allupdatesto the operating system.
8. Computerslowbecausethere areSystemFilesare corruptedorevenlost. Usuallyoccursafter thecomputer is infected withvirusesandinfectedfiles thatarealready damagedorterdeletebyantivirus. The easiestsolutionistorepair youroperating systemis used.
9 . Computer slow because of hardware problems overheating . Both
the hardware overheating occurs on the hard disk , vga card , cpu
processor or in general can lead to reduced performance of the computer
that eventually the computer to hang , slow or even frequent restarts . To
make sure that air circulation on the inside of the CPU running well as
well as the fan ( fan ) must be clean of dust and can rotate smoothly .10 . Computer slow because of a connectivity problem on the network / network. This
could happen due to high network traffic , hub or switch that hangs or
any viruses that try to get into our computer system . To
fix this , try to pair off and back on the LAN Card RJ45 connectors or
rosette LAN , restart the Switch / hub and use a port scanner program to
see what the data packet in and out of our computers . Maybe
that's a few things and how to tackle the causes of a slow computer
that I can conclude based on the experience that I often encounter ,
enhancements and other corrections I wait ... thanks .
