Windows 7: The new Amazing taskbar

Windows

Microsoft did a lot of work on the new taskbar for Windows 7. They looked extensively how people where using their computers and started making improvements based on those observations. The number one task for what people use the taskbar is to switch between windows. Below I will show and discuss some of the changes/enhancements.

Microsoft has started their taskbar improvements with a facelift that includes larger icons, which make it easier to identify programs, and also makes it easier to target icons with a cursor without accidentally clicking on the icon next to it. The Windows 7 taskbar is 10 pixels (at the default 96 DPI) higher than the taskbar used in Windows Vista, this of course when used as a single row (you are still able to use multiple rows). You’ll also note that the taskbar looks more ‘glassy’. According to Microsoft the feedback they got was that users dislike Vista’s UI where the taskbar would turn opaque and dark.
You can still pin programs to the taskbar by dragging them or via a context menu, just like you have always done with Quick Launch.In Windows 7 Microsoft effectively combined the QuickLaunch and taskband. In order to maximize the use of available space, Microsoft standardized launching and switching behavior so that only a single representation is made on the taskbar.

As you can see from the images above, the shortcut for Microsoft Word changes to represent an opened Word document. Now you may wonder what would happen when you have two or more documents open, and how you would be able to switch between them.
Here is where another improvement to the taskbar comes to light. When hovering over a taskbar button you’ll see a thumbnail as you would in Vista. The difference with Vista is that in Windows 7 the thumbnails are now an extension of their corresponding button so you can click on these to switch to a given window. The thumbnails are also a more accurate representation of a window; complete with an application icon in the top left corner, window text and even the ubiquitous close button in the top right.

taskbar windows 7 There is a visual cue of stacked tiles to give a clue whether there are multiple windows running for a program (see picture at the left), but I think this should be improved.Another advantage of the single representation is that you can now move taskbar buttons. Quick Launch as always allowed this, but combining this mechanism with the taskband naturally extended rearrange functionality to running windows.

windows 7 taskbar The next improvement I want to talk about is called “Jump Lists“. Most users are used to the concept of the context menu that is available for running programs. This menu is accessible by right-clicking on a taskband button or in the top left corner of most windows. By default, the menu exposes windows controls such as Minimize, Maximize and Close. In Windows 7 this is taken a step further as Microsoft wanted to make it easier for people to jump to things they are trying to accomplish. The advantage is that you don’t have to start the program to quickly access a task or launch a file.

Above you see the jump list of Windows Explorer’s taskbar shortcut, which includes frequently accessed locations as well as the most recent accessed locations. You can also pin specific locations to this list, so you can always access them quickly .

notification area of Taskbar in windows 7 Microsoft also greatly improved the notification area, putting users back in control. By default, only a select few system icons are shown while all others appear in a menu. Simply drag icons on or off the taskbar to control the experience. Also, every balloon tip that appears in the notification area has a little wrench icon that allows one to quickly configure the icon & notifications.

Another popular requested change is that the default taskbar now shows both the time and date. I think that these are all good improvements to the taskbar, and while it will take a bit of time to get used to the change, the important thing is that these changes definitely improve the functionality of the taskbar.

by Arie Slob

November 30, 2008 · Filed Under Microsoft

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Microsoft Delays Internet Explorer 8 to Early 2009

Microsoft last week announced that it has delayed the final release of its next web browser, Internet Explorer (IE) 8, from late 2008 to early 2009.

“We will release one more public update of IE 8 in the first quarter of 2009, and then follow that up with the final release,” Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch wrote in a posting to Microsoft’s IEBlog last week. “Our next public release of IE (typically called a “release candidate”) indicates the end of the beta period. We want the technical community of people and organizations interested in web browsers to take this update as a strong signal that IE 8 is effectively complete and done.”

According to Hachamovitch the IE team shifted through instrumentation of over 20 million IE sessions and hundreds of hours of usability lab sessions, scrutinized thousands of threads from user forums and examined the issues that people are raising (not to mention all the times users opt to “Report a Webpage Problem…”).

It looks like website compatibility issues (because of IE8’s standards-compliant render engine) is the number one reason for most of the remaining issues.

Microsoft’s Senior Vice President Bill Veghte had told analysts at the company’s Financial Analyst Meeting in July that “This is the product that we’ll release to the Web later this year”, indicating a late 2008 release.

WindowsNewsletter

www.helpwithwindows.com

November 30, 2008 · Filed Under Microsoft

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AMD Phenom II goes 6.3 Ghz

AMD

Hold the phone on handing the CPU performance crown to Intel’s new Core i7 processors just yet — the chip giant may yet have a fight on its hands in the coming months.

Advanced Micro Devices demoed its upcoming 45-nanometer “Deneb” desktop chips — now confirmed as Phenom II — for reviewers in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, and reports are in that AMD overclockers were able to achieve clock speeds north of 6 GHz on the second-generation quad-core devices.

How far north of 6 GHz? AMD spokesman John Taylor confirmed the basics of stories published by PC Perspective’s Josh Walrath and Legit Review’s Nathan Kirsch Thursday, but held back on outright endorsing the numbers originally cited in those stories.

Respecting AMD’s wishes, we’ll just point out that PC Perspective’s story now says, “The Phenom II reached WELL over 5.x GHz (read: REALLY over).” And another source gives a more specific number — 6.3GHz, though again, that could not be confirmed by AMD.

AMD, headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., reached such overclocking heights using liquid nitrogen to cool the processor that was taken to “WELL over 5.x GHz.” PC Perspective reports that the Phenom II parts can also hit 4 GHz on air cooling and 5 GHz on dry ice cooling. The top Phenom II chip, due out sometime in the first quarter of 2009, will reportedly list as 3.0 GHz off the shelf.

Intel’s top Core i7 processor, which incorporates the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant’s new Nehalem micro-architecture, is listed as a 3.2 GHz part. Overclockers have reportedly managed to scale it to 4.5 GHz on air cooling alone. Some enthusiasts have also taken Core i7s to 5.7GHz on liquid nitrogen, while the CRN Test Center conducted some “modest overclocking” on the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition to add some extra oomph to an already astonishing Geekbench2 score for that processor on an Intel “SmackOver” board.

AMD’s Taylor said the Phenom II demos conducted Thursday were done on what the chip maker is calling its “Dragon” platform — a quad-core Phenom II processor, ATI Radeon 4800 series discrete graphics and an AMD 790 chipset. Taylor said the processors shown were not hand-picked engineering parts, though he added, “But clearly they weren’t duds.”

Clock speeds for AMD’s upcoming 45nm desktop chips appear to be mapping to the same sort of advantages the recently released 45nm Opterons code-named Shanghai have displayed over the previous generation of 65nm Barcelona server chips. Taylor said the extra level of “headroom” towards dramatic overclocking capacities on the Phenom II parts is due to a combination of architectural improvements over the original Phenoms first released late in 2007.

“It’s about high-speed path optimizations, how it does memory pre-fetch, how it does branch predictions, the larger cache. So you’ve got higher clock frequency per TDP, but at the same thermals,” he said.

“The result has been modest improvements on instruction per clock but much better clock frequency. It’ll be the biggest step in processor improvement between generations that AMD has ever made, with the exception of leading the industry from single to dual-core.”

So who said the clockspeed battles are over? Over the past few years, we’ve heard quite a lot about how it’s not as important on multicore chips. But now that both Intel and AMD are really hitting their stride on successive generations of quad-core architectures, the new chips are coming out of the gate pretty darn fast.

Intel is hitting first with what it calls the “fastest processor on the planet” (with a lot of shared enthusiasm from reviewers, we should add) and the new Core i7 parts are, without a doubt, a major step-up in performance over the older Core 2 Quad chips. But AMD might just be about to drop some surprisingly powerful processors on the market as well.

“Phenom II is a big step up, too, but you don’t have to open your wallet as wide to make that step up,” Taylor said.

November 24, 2008 · Filed Under Hardware, Reviews

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Acer 4530 : User Review

acer

Basic info:

Screen: 14.1 inches
Weight: 5.3lbs
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 QL-60 @1.90 Ghz
RAM: 1GB DDR2 SD RAM @ 667 MHz ( Upgradable upto 4GB )*
HDD: 160GB SATA Harddisk Drive
Communication: 802.11b/g Wifi Signal UP, Inbuilt EDR2.0 Bluetooth.

Graphics/Chipset: Offer Nvidia 9100M G with 256mb Dedicated memory.

Slots: 3USB 2.0, 1 LAN, 1 Modem, one Express/54 slot, 1 VGA out, 1 SD/MMC reader Slot at front
Extra: Volume Whell free and the ACER Empower Button The Laptop also offers 5 Multimedia Buttons very nicely configured at left hand side for, Wifi(signalUP), bluetooth, IE, EMAIL, Messenger.

The pointing device is also very nicely responsive and gives a significant touch level satisfaction.

This notebook comes with two offers for free 60 days trial for McAfee and Microsoft Office 2007.**

Battery/Charging: As for the battery part i would say it dissapoints we with only approx 1.5hrs on High Performance, 2.2 - 2.5 hrs on balanced and about 4 hrs approx. on power saver modes.
charging takes about 1-1.25 hrs to charge to 100% from 10%, so i would think it of a PRO.

OS: comes with Free LInux

Pricing: I got it for 30K ( 30000INR*** ) with Rs.800/- Extra for another GB of Kingston RAM.

Windows Vista/7 Experience Index scoring

It gave me :

4.7 - processor
5.6 - RAM
4.0/4.4 - Desktop/Gaming GFx
5.3 - HDD transfer rates.

so Overall of 4.0 as for the Graphics..

Would like to add a point with windows 7 that it gives better gaming performance on this laptop than windows vista.

FINAL WORD: With comparision to the same type configration in DELL, TOSHIBA, i would give this one a extra mark on pricing. This one comes for 31000INR. only whereas others in the same category touches 40000INR. mark.i would give this one a GO 9/10 for pricing, quality and Build.. Vista takes about 10 seconds to load so its good. I even played Call of duty WAW and it gave me good performance on medium high graphics.. so it might as well suit you for some gaming needs.

A Perfect buy for casual Gamerz, home users and i bit of power user as well.. not for long battery lovers…

PROS/CONS

PROS: Nice Configuration, Easy to access, Cool looks, Very cheap

CONS: Battery life.

* Some Models come with 2GB
** Offer at acer Website
*** Pricing may vary from place to Place

Disclamer : This is my Personal Review and has nothing to do with the company policy or with Performance or configuration of other laptops in this series.

November 23, 2008 · Filed Under Hardware, Reviews

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Thinkdigit.com : A Place to hang out for tech & Fun

When I Personally Talk about thinkdigit.com , it means to me a place where i started forumming.. Its a Place where i learnt and Helped others. If you are a home user, A IP pro, a Developer or a regular Enthusiast, its one of the best Places to Hang out.. to be very specefic its a Community that has even given India few of its Mirosoft Windows MVPs. let me Explain a bit about it..

First to Share should be the link : so it is http://www.thinkdigit.com & for the forum it is : http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum ,

Thinkdigit is the Place that gives you endless knowledge and it has broad access to every part of the computing which we use today and we will tomorrow. Yes its from the same DIGIT Magazine.. the top selling Tech Magazine in India. Most of us follow the Digit Magazine to be in touch with the latest technology related News, Gadgets and a great software stuff for our PCs.

A great Expansion to the digit website is that now they feature a new Classified Section, in which they feature the digital zone for the users to buy/sell products, I myself tried it and yes it really works.. the only thing i would love to suggest would be the theme work on the forum.. it would be appreciated if that can be made a bit more soothing

you might want to follow these links here to take a look for yourself what it really is.. No matter if you follow Microsoft Windows, Open Source Linux Software or even MAC OS X , thinkdigit helps you find every help and tools for your Favourite system. Don’t forget to visit the news. programming , Gamerz & Hardware section.