Mike's Window : General

There is a marked difference..

Mike Hall — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:51:26 GMT

Yesterday, I un-installed Microsoft Office 2007 from my Vista installation. Wow, did that take a time to complete or what. The purpose was to install the newly released Office 2010 Beta. First attempt – please uninstall FrontPage 2003 and Access server...(read more)

New slippers for your mouse..

Mike Hall — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:06:50 GMT

Don’t you just love the way that a new mouse glides across a new mouse mat. For the first few days, the mouse is a pleasure to use. Then one day, you boot up your computer, and the mouse feels like it is wearing DMS boots fitted with ice spikes. The mouse...(read more)

Website experiences..

Mike Hall — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:54:44 GMT

Please bear in mind that I am a beginner to all of this stuff, and have had to do all of this with limited knowledge and even less resources.. I have recently moved my website from a paid service with HostPapa . There was nothing wrong with the service...(read more)

Compatibility worries..

Mike Hall — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:13:02 GMT

I wrote a brief piece about FrontPage 2003 and Windows 7, about how FrontPage files will not keep the association with the parent program. Well, ICQ doesn’t allow me to sign in either, but ICQ will release a version which will work, but Microsoft have...(read more)

That darn start menu..

Mike Hall — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:04:00 GMT

For the months leading up to the release of Windows 7 RTM, I have been working out ways to try to emulate the old Classic menu. It was an important feature of earlier Windows versions. I like stuff in small compartments, and being able to create folders...(read more)

Browser Ballots

Mike Hall — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:16:59 GMT

The EU Commission appears to have coerced Microsoft into including a ‘browser ballot’ in the upcoming release of Windows 7E. Why do EU residents get to have all of the fun? Time for some fun of my own.. The ballot: Firefox – the top page hit will always...(read more)

PerfectSpeed.

Mike Hall — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:08:07 GMT

To be perfectly honest, I am not generally a fan of any utility which claims to increase or maintain the speed of a computer. There have been a few over time, some free to use, others not, and I have never been able to tell if any of them performed as...(read more)

Monitor Aspect Ratios unraveled..

Mike Hall — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:44:59 GMT

Sometimes, the native resolution of a newly purchased monitor can make it hard to read for those who do not have 20:20 vision. And then there are those who like to see more on their monitors and have good enough eyesight to cope. I have to use reading...(read more)

PC – Personal Computer or Politically Correct?

Mike Hall — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:28:41 GMT

Back when.. DOS The choices were: DR-DOS MS-DOS And the winner was… MS-DOS . DR-DOS was probably better, but Digital Research didn’t respond to IBM, and Microsoft did. IBM supplied their own version of MS-DOS only on their own computers. Why didn’t Digital...(read more)

Windows 7 FAQ..

Mike Hall — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:36:57 GMT

Round colorful thingummybobber here: 1.. Where is the START button? We believe that the START button was far too recognizable as a feature of XP, and so we decided to give it a new look. Also, we wanted to make it more of a challenge for support people...(read more)

Defragmentation - size matters..

Mike Hall — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:26:00 GMT

Basically, files fragment because any time a file is edited and bits added either directly by the user or indirectly by the system, the file size may not fit the original saved space. In the case of the Windows filing system, the file will be saved elsewhere...(read more)

Capturing the imagination..

Mike Hall — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:04:00 GMT

I have mentioned the need for a killer application which will revitalize Windows. Well, back in 1992, there was just such an animal, and it was one of the first Windows programs which captured the imagination of home computer users. I am talking about...(read more)

LCD Monitors

Mike Hall — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:00:28 GMT

For the last two or three years, I have used a 19” LCD monitor as my primary display alongside an 18” Dell P990. Three months ago, the LCD monitor started to play up. It would lose colour brightness occasionally, but one day decided it was not going to...(read more)

High End? Not exactly..

Mike Hall — Sat, 09 May 2009 17:14:39 GMT

‘Mike’s Window’ is written in Windows Live Writer which is running in Vista 64. This is the OS which everybody loves to hate. I do have Windows 7 64bit RC installed too but I prefer Vista. This is my production PC.. Biostar T6100-939. AMD 64 3500...(read more)

And some say that Windows 7 is really Vista SP3 and that Vista is useless!!

Mike Hall — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:25:27 GMT

I have a spare box kicking around at the moment, not too well specified but OK. So I thought that I would install Ubuntu 8.10 on it. That goes well as long as one choose the option to use the entire disk, and in fact it did. Then I get a popup telling...(read more)

Fun with numbers..

Mike Hall — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:00:52 GMT

A recent report has come up with an interesting fact. Eighty four percent of IT Pro’s will not be upgrading to Windows 7 this year. This should not be a surprise, bearing in mind that Windows 7 has not even reached the RTM stage yet. I have no doubt that...(read more)

Oh, the fragility..

Mike Hall — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 09:46:01 GMT

I don’t know very much about the world of espionage, be it ‘Bond, James Bond’ style or plain old boring commercial skullduggery. I do know that all sides went to extraordinary lengths re technology in order to gain an edge. In the days of paper and filing...(read more)

Slow machines.. Software issues

Mike Hall — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:16:06 GMT

When you first get your new computer home, assuming that it is reasonably specified, it should almost burst into life. A computer with only Windows installed should see the ‘blue torpedo’ pass maybe three times before releasing the Welcome screen. The...(read more)

Slow machines.. Hardware issues

Mike Hall — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:21:00 GMT

What has happened to the concept of respecting your customers? How do the CEO’s of major stores and direct sellers sleep at night knowing full well that their company has sold underpowered junk to ‘would be’ computer users who do not...(read more)

Hard drives.. In My Opinion

Mike Hall — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:16:54 GMT

Benchmarks.. a exercise in futility? For those of you who just love numbers, here are the ‘read’ results of running HD Tune Pro on my hard drives. What they essentially show is that a large SATA II drive with a cache twice the size of smaller drives has...(read more)