Mike's Window : Windows

A blast from the past..

Mike Hall — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:47:53 GMT

Those of you who remember this.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro .. might also remember this character. His name was Repton, a lizard who had a propensity for wanting to gather jewels. All you had to do was to carefully guide him through a maze...(read more)

A day in the life..

Mike Hall — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:12:16 GMT

Having promised a 24hr turn around No original disks.. surprise surprise Finger marks all over the screen.. again How do stores get away with selling underpowered junk? Slow?? It doesn’t even boot !!!! Oh cool.. the ‘you may have been scammed’ graphic...(read more)

Heresy..

Mike Hall — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:42:35 GMT

This statement, made by a UK Microsoft manager, has been called a ‘can of worms’ "What we've tried to do with Windows 7, whether it's traditional format or in a touch format, is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics." Question...(read more)

The Best Ever Utility?

Mike Hall — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 02:00:37 GMT

Contained in the Windows 95 Powertoys was a small utility called ‘Send ToX’. All one had to do was right click on one of the two files which had a right click option to ‘install’ and then click on ‘install’. A couple of popup windows would appear, and...(read more)

Google Chrome OS?

Mike Hall — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:00:35 GMT

Hmmmmmmm.. based on Open Source technology? Sounds to me like another “Debian” job. Just what we need, eh. It will be first seen on netbooks, a type of portable computer which saw massive growth initially, but which will wane as users find out that “underpowered...(read more)

Anti-trust?

Mike Hall — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:43:26 GMT

I am still officially a British Citizen, I hold a British/EU passport, and I don’t intend to let it go anytime soon. However, there are some things which happen in the UK and Europe which really make me cringe. The latest is the response by the EU to...(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)

Software is the scapegoat..

Mike Hall — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:54:48 GMT

Some recent quotes I have seen.. “Too bad they won't offer those of us with Vista a free upgrade. I guess if I'd lived in the right time period, I'd have bought an Edsel, too.” “IT SAID WINDOWS XP 7 IS COMING MAYBE IN THE FALL. IT WONT BE...(read more)

How much RAM?

Mike Hall — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:26:00 GMT

Windows 2000 machines aimed at business would sit on the shelves with 128mb fitted. When the corporate buyers came along, more memory would be specified, maybe 256mb. Windows 2000 would rattle along quite nicely with 256mb powering it, but if it was fitted...(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)

Have you been ‘confickered’?

Mike Hall — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:24:53 GMT

You may not necessarily realize that you have, but there are people out there who monitor the progress of worms, Trojans and viruses. The good news is that on this day, April 1st 2009, the Conficker worm does not appear to have propagated as the rumors...(read more)

64bit + Canon Lide 30 + Vuescan 8.5

Mike Hall — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:25:37 GMT

It works, and I should be really pleased, and I was until I clicked on ‘Purchase now’. There are two versions of Vuescan: standard or professional. Pricing is essentially half the price of a new scanner, or almost full price of a new scanner. To offset...(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)

Annoying problems..

Mike Hall — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:23:21 GMT

Yeah, yeah.. so the weasel word for problems these days is ‘challenges’ and, in fairness, it is not too far off of the mark in that many of the problems encountered ‘challenge’ one’s sanity. Challenge #1 Why is it that windows do not hold their set position...(read more)

What is the first thing that you will do when you power up your nice new shiny Vista computer?

Mike Hall — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:51:48 GMT

If you are a beginner, you might: look for and play Freecell look for and play Solitaire If you are a fairly accomplished Solitaire player, you might: install Yahoo or Windows Live Messenger so that you can start chatting again get somebody to install...(read more)

Obsessions..

Mike Hall — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:10:21 GMT

If I was the type of computer user who can only have the absolute best and nothing else will do, I probably couldn't afford one. I can understand a gamer wanting the best because every 1/000th of a second counts (apparently). I can understand a video...(read more)

Wi-Fi Security - Queen to WPA.. Checkmate..

Mike Hall — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:52:09 GMT

In the beginning, nobody really cared Then we heard that wireless Internet and networks could be intercepted So we all set up WEP encryption Last year, WEP Wi-Fi encryption was cracked in under a minute So we all moved to WPA encryption This year, WPA...(read more)

Ultramon.. Dual Screen Functionality..

Mike Hall — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:15:59 GMT

Some you lose.. One of the most annoying events in a computer users life is losing features when upgrading to the latest and greatest OS. When I moved up to Vista from XP, my Canon scanner still retained full support because Canon were good enough to...(read more)

Why is Windows the #1 operating system on the PC platform?

Mike Hall — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:26:10 GMT

If you answer 'because Microsoft forces the manufacturers to make us have it', you are wrong. Microsoft Windows was a natural progression out of MS-DOS which IBM elected to have after something of a snub by Digital Research many years ago. It...(read more)

Names, Schnames..

Mike Hall — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:36:00 GMT

There is a bit of a do about the name of the next Windows version. My last post told you that it will be called Windows 7, and Mike Nash explained why it will. Do you care what it will be called? Isn't it more important that the version does as you...(read more)