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Mike's Window

Mike's Window

A commonly held 'view.. '

 "Well, it worked in Windows 95!"

MVP Award years

2005 - 2006 - 2007

2008 - 2009 - 2010

2011 - 2012 - 2013

The original MVP logo

My Favourite Utilities

Speedfan is a great hardware monitor which can automatically control fan speeds, warn when temperatures are rising in the case, and do a SMART scan of your hard drives. A 'must have'.. http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php 

Piriform Speccy tells you what is inside the box and with great accuracy.. http://www.piriform.com/speccy

Networx shows download/upload bandwidth used.. http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

Piriform Recuva is probably the best file recovery utility around and is free too.. http://www.piriform.com/recuva 

Treesize shows you what you have got, where it is, and how much space it is all using.. http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

Windows 8 alternative start menus.. Classic Shell.. http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

Stardock Start8.. http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

EaseUS Partition Manager is the best free utility of its type..   http://www.partition-tool.com/download.htm

YoWindow, a weather utility which appears to work with the Windows 8 desktop.. http://yowindow.com/

My Favourite Gadgets - Windows 7 and Vista only..

Gas Buddy.. http://www.londongasprices.com/VistaGadget.aspx

NetMeter.. http://addgadget.com/

Network Monitor.. http://samwtucker.com/

Asst'd gadgets.. http://gallery.djinngo.com/gallery/index.html

Weather fun.. http://yowindow.com/

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  • An Open Letter to Microsoft.. By John C. Dvorak

    Dear Sir or Madam, This is an open letter to everyone and anyone involved with Windows 8. Don't let the critics get you down. You've done good work and it should be rewarded. Immediately ask for a salary raise of 10 to 20 percent. You deserve...
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  • Rumours or Real?

    Windows Blue .. The story so far... http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/05/06/windows-8-at-6-months-q-amp-a-with-tami-reller.aspx PC sales .. No, it is not the fault of Windows 8. It is because there is a shift to tablet forms...

  • On the case..

    The new Coolermaster CM690 II Advanced case has now been in service for thirty five days. In that time, it has not displayed any of the annoying characteristics of it’s predecessor. Windows has not shutdown once and everything is working. I still dare...
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  • Where did all of the Netbooks go?

    I have found out where. The manufacturers took the keyboards off and called them tablets, everybody except for Acer, that is. A quick look at a Netbook gone by.. This is a Toshiba NB250, one of the better netbooks of the day. It is powered by the Intel...
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  • The difference that a FULL driver makes..

    The desktop tower: Windows 8 – not quite fully supported AMD Phenom II X4 running at 3,4ghz 8gb high performance RAM ATI HD4250 video WD 500gb High Performance SATA The Netbook: Windows 7 – fully supported Intel Atom running at 1.6ghz 2gb standard RAM'...

  • Windows 8 - Network hardware compatibility ..

    After a week of moving my workspace around, tidying up cable runs, committing an aging Panasonic Fax/Phone machine to the local Goodwill store, I thought it best to try out some of my older network adapters. The two adapters are: An Ultra USB 2.0 Fax...
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  • The best mobile PC.. for business.. or anybody

    Some interesting results here.. http://www.soluto.com/reports Of course, the one advantage business supplied machines have over the OEM stuff in stores is the slim customized corporate Windows image, rigorously tested over maybe a year before being applied...

  • Did Microsoft miss the point?

    I’ve spent a bit of time defending Windows 8 in the forums of late, and as a consequence, I am not getting as many ‘marked as answers’. The other reason is that moderators no longer cruise the forums marking answers just to make it look like the forums...
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  • Return of the official Start button?

    They say that the return would not boost PC sales, but while it might not boost sales to Windows 95 levels, it would no doubt make a difference. Presently, a consumer walks into a computer retailer, sees a cellphone which has been clumsily disguised to...
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  • A case update..

    It has been a full eleven days since I rebuilt my PC into the new case. So far, it has behaved itself, not a hint of wanting to shut down. It makes life so much easier when your case isn’t working against you. The internal design has changed. There are...

  • XP.. Less than a year to go..

    If you have an original XP machine, by the time that XP loses support, it will be at least seven years old. The hard drive will be quite small, 40 – 60gb, and the screen will have lost its original brilliance. If you have a version of MS Office which...

  • Windows 8 - Hibernation

    Since clean installing Windows 8, my computer has decided that it will not stay in hibernation until called upon to wake up. This is what Event Viewer has to say about it. Information    07/04/2013 04:22:08    Kernel-General   ...

  • Build Notes..

    While my case was away, I looked for replacements which had an external SATA drive bay incorporated into the top panel. It was this feature which attracted me to the CM6790 II originally. Coolermaster and Thermaltake both produce cases with the facility...
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  • I got a case..

    .. a CM690 II Advanced Evolution. This is a fancy title for what I had before. I was promised the latest version, the USB 3.0 type, but it isn’t one of them. To be honest, I don’t care as long as it doesn’t exhibit the same behaviour as the old one did...
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  • Windows Blue, what will you do?

    How about putting the classic Start menu back in like it used to be? No? Awwww, go on, do it.. How about addressing the ‘Modern UI’ reliability? It would be nice if the tiles always worked and didn’t throw up errors about updating and installing. How...
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  • Back in business.. soon

    I have received notification today that a new Coolermaster CM690 II case has started the journey to London Ontario, eta being April 2nd ‘by the end of the day’. The new case will have USB 3.0 ports, two of them,  Needless to say, my 880G motherboard...
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  • The Great Wait..

    Two great waits actually.. Wait #1. My old case arrived ‘home’ at !0:45, Monday, 18 March. It now has to be checked out by Coolermaster technicians, and in time I will get an email telling me that something is being sent back to me. Due process is probably...
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  • On the production front..

    While my Coolermaster CM 690 II is on its way to California, I have squeezed as much of my PC as possible into a totally inappropriate case.It has less structural integrity than the average aluminium food container but is a better option than leaving...
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  • Netbook powered..

    This is my first Netbook powered blog post ever. The core of this system is presently a Toshiba Mini, my production PC internals being scattered around two desks. For now, they are homeless as my original Coolermaster CM 690 II case makes its way back...
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  • Simple and usable..

    It’s the title of a book written by Giles Colborne, who has been designing interactive user experiences since the early 1990s. When he’s not doing that he he’s busy with cxpartners , a design consultancy based in Bristol and London that specialises in...
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