7 Fantastic New Windows 7 Features – "7 on 7"

by: Bryan Lambert – November 08, 2009

This last month we have seen Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 7, debut to much fanfare and praise. In light of this, this weeks Tech Tip looks at 7 things that help make Windows 7 the next “must get” operating system for your desktop pc or notebook computer.

1. Task Bar

One of the most obvious things that is different about Windows 7 is what Microsoft did with the Task Bar. With larger pinned icons that quickly and easily navigate through the various tasks being done, Windows 7 makes the old Quick Launch a distant memory. If you are hit with a bit of nostalgia, then just Bing “quick launch windows 7” for directions on how to get it back – but believe me, you won’t miss it. With this improved Task Bar, you can switch around how the programs are ordered, get full screen previews and even pin more of your favorite programs directly to it. Right- click on any of the icons, and you get a “Jump List” that shows the recent files (or web pages) used by that program – and yes, you can pin your favorites there too. Windows 7 makes navigating downright fun and fast.

2 Networking

With Windows 7, setting up a home network turns literally into a no-brainer. Setting up a home network that actually worked well in older versions of Windows sometimes was not something that the feint of heart would want to attempt, but the Windows 7 HomeGroup feature makes it a down right sin NOT to set up all your PCs with a home network. Not only do you get the essential files shared (photos, music, videos, documents), but you can literally make one of your PCs a multimedia hub feeding streaming entertainment to the other PCs on the network (you can even access your media remotely with “remote media streaming”). For HomeGroup functionality as well as remote media streaming, you do need the PCs to all be running Windows 7 – but really, you’d want to because it IS that slick and easy!

3 Better, Bigger, Faster, Stronger

One of the big gripes about Windows Vista was that it needed A LOT of horsepower behind it to really run effectively. With Windows 7, you not only get vastly improved boot up times, but you get snappier program response, better recover from sleep time and faster shut down time. All around Windows 7 is leaner, meaner and just that much better than all other versions of Windows before it. It basically does more with what you have (there’s even a version of Windows 7 for cheaper netbooks). With laptops, because of Windows 7's better power management and its very cool location aware printing features (it switched default printers between the home and office), Windows 7 will quickly become your operating system of choice. Believe me, if you’re a Windows XP holdout, Windows 7 will quickly make you a convert!

4 Handling Devices and Printers

Microsoft looked for a way to improve its handling of devices and in Windows 7 it has hit a home run. Cell phones, digital cameras, music players, printers old and new, even your PC – Windows 7 has made one easy place to manage all your device

5 Improved Search

One of the really nice features that Windows Vista introduced to the Windows family was the Search Box in the Start Menu. Honestly, it is like regressing going from that back to Windows XP and having to root around with its search functions. With Windows 7 you get that search box on steroids. It is now faster, more inclusive and easier to use than before. Want to find out what’s new in Windows 7, just click on Start and type in the search box: “what’s new with Windows 7”; or perhaps you are looking for ways to get started with windows 7, then simply type in “getting started”; or perhaps you’re thinking or getting started with HomeGroup, then type in, you guessed it: “HomeGroup”. It works great with searching your documents, photos and music too (down to a word or phrase included a document). Basically, you find the things you are looking for faster and easier than ever before.

6 Snap, rattle and peek

Windows 7 has taken actually using your open windows on the desktop and whipping them into shape to a whole ‘nother level with Snap. With the snap feature, you simply “snap” the windows against the side of the screen to resize and arrange them. For example, you can take a window, drag it by its top border to the top of the screen and it “snaps” into maximized size. Do it again to that window and it returns to its previous size. You can even snap two windows side by side for easy comparison. The similar “shake” feature lets you grab the top border of an open windows and with a quick “shake” of the mouse, make all the other windows minimize. The Peek feature is kind of like the old “show desktop” from the quick launch bar – but with a twist. This handy little button on the far right of the task bar (right next to the clock) will minimize all the windows when clicked on once, and bring them back again with another click – but if you hover over it with out clicking you can “peek” at your windows desktop (including any gadgets you have).

7 Windows Live Essentials, Security and more Flexibility

As we have seen, Windows 7 is quite a robust operating system in itself. Microsoft had the forethought to also add what they call “Live Essentials” to the mix. This is a set of free programs that you can pick and choose from in one convenient package. They are downloaded, so you will need internet access (which if you’re reading this Tech Tip – you more than likely already have). With Live Essentials for Windows 7, (which is a little different than the Windows Live Essentials package for other versions of Windows) , you get a bunch of free basic programs such as a photo editor, an e-mail program, instant messenger, etc. Not to be overlooked is Microsoft’s newly released “Security Essentials” package that provides virus, malware and spyware protection for your PC. And not to be overlooked is the greatest flexibility ever offered with a Windows package. With Windows 7, you can quickly and easily turn on and off Windows features to suit your needs (such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player).

So, give Windows 7 a go and we’re sure you’ll find that it is simply the best operating system that Microsoft generic viagra in canada has ever put out.

A Linux Live CD to the Rescue!

By Scott Nesbitt – August 2, 2009

Computer hard drives. They're an essential component of your computing experience. While they're not as fragile as they were even 10 years ago, they're often one of the weak links in the chain of hardware that makes up a desktop computer or a laptop computer.

When something goes wrong with a hard drive, you can be in a lot of trouble. Especially if you haven't backed up your data recently. If you need that data – whether it's office documents, photos, videos, or all of the above – right now it can cost you. Professional data recovery can cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. And there's no guarantee of success.

But before going that route, you might be able to do the job yourself if you're willing to get your hands dirty. How? All you need is a blank CD, a USB flash drive, and some Linux Live CD software.

More than just for a test drive

As discussed in a previous TechTip, Linux Live CDs are a great way to take Linux for a spin without installing it on your computer. But there are other Live CDs that perform special jobs.

What kinds of jobs? How about trying to fix a computer that's not playing nicely.

The situation

A few months ago, my wife's laptop (which ran Windows XP) wouldn't start properly. It would power up, then display a screen which informed her that the last shutdown wasn't completed properly. There were several boot options presented. But no matter which one my wife chose, Windows would try to start then the laptop would suddenly reboot. With the same message as before.

Nothing my wife or I tried worked. Instead of doing something drastic, like trying to reinstall Windows or Linux, or reformatting the hard drive, I tried starting the computer in safe mode, without the option to reboot automatically on an error. When I did this, the boot up stalled when XP was trying to load a driver called mup.sys. I did some research, and learned that mup.sys can get corrupted or infected with a virus. As it turned out, there was more to the problem than that.

I got the feeling that I might be able to salvage the hard drive. If nothing else, I figured I could get the most important files off that laptop.

To do that, I decided to turn to a Linux Live CD for help.

Getting the Live CD

In this case, the Live CD was actually a rescue CD. I looked at several, and on the recommendation of a couple of techie pals, I got my hands on one called SystemRescueCD.

SystemRescueCD comes with a number of utilities for analyzing and diagnosing problems with a hard drive or system memory, and for recovering from failures and errors. While SystemRescueCD comes with a very lightweight graphical user interface, most of the utilities are run from the command line.

If you need help with running the utilities, even if you are an experienced Linux user, then you should take the time to browse the documentation for SystemRescueCD.

It helps, believe me.

Burning the disk image

I downloaded an ISO image, which is literally a snapshot of the contents of a disk – in this case, a stripped-down Linux operating system and a bunch of utilities.

When you have an ISO image, you need to burn it to a blank CD as a disk image. In Windows, you can use a nifty freeware application called ISO Recorder. Just about every CD burning application for Linux allows you to burn an ISO image.

On Mac OS X, just select Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, then choose Images > Burn.

Getting to work

Once I had the CD ready, I popped it into CD-ROM drive of my wife's laptop, and restarted it. Luckily, her laptop was set to boot from the CD-ROM drive. If this doesn't work for you, change this in your computer's BIOS settings. Depending on your computer, you do this by pressing F2 or ESC or DEL when the computer firsts starts up.

The first thing I did once the Live CD loaded was try to mount the Windows partition on the hard drive from the command line.

In Linux terms, mounting merely means getting access to a file system or drive. 

The command I used was:

mount -t ntfs /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows -o ro

This tells the command to access an NTFS file system (the default used by Windows) via the device /dev/sda2 (which is how the Live CD detected the hard drive), and to let me access the drive using the directory /mnt/windows.

That worked. So, I plugged in one of my 4 GB USB flash drives and mounted that with the following command:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb1

This allowed me to get access to the flash drive via the directory /mnt/usb1.

I ran the command cd /mnt/windows to change to the Windows drive, and then navigated my way to the folder where my wife kept her files. Using the Linux copy command (cp), I then transferred the files over to the flash drive. That took a while; there were about 3GB of files there.

A pair of funny things happened when copying the files. First, some files refused copy over. Second, many of the files had long names. When they were copied over to the flash drive, the names got truncated and the a good chunk of those names were replaced with a tilde (~).

Trying to save the hard drive

While I managed to salvage most of my wife's files, I wanted to see if I could also save the hard drive. SystemRescueCD comes with a powerful utility that can help determine this called testdisk. Testdisk can do diagnostics on and recover hard disks. It has a text-based interface. You don't have to type commands, but instead selection option by tabbing, using the up and down arrow keys, and pressing Enter. It's like many DOS programs of yore.

I ran the first check by selecting the Analyse option. For some reason the program stalled. After killing testdisk, I looked at the log file that it produced. In the log file was an error message stating that there was a problem with the number of disk sectors. That's not a good sign. Disk sectors store large lumps of data. If they're damaged, a hard drive is usually toast.

Next, I ran a check on the physical cylinders of the hard drive by selecting the Deeper Search option. Testdisk got through about 97% of the deeper search, and it stalled too. That indicated that there was a physical problem with the hard drive and that there was no way I was going to save it.

effects viagra /> Summing up

A Linux Live CD, especially one like SystemRescueCD, can be a good way of recovering your files if your computer starts acting up. A tool like SystemRescueCD is a bit geeky, and can be a tad difficult to use if you have no experience with backup software.