Ten Reasons to Upgrade to Windows 7

1. Aero Peak : To quickly peer past all open windows to look straight at the Windows 7 desktop, simply point to the right edge of the taskbar. All open windows will instantly turn transparent, making it possible to see what's on the desktop.
2. Redesigned Taskbar : With Windows 7, getting an application icon onto the taskbar is as simple as right-clicking on the icon and selecting "Pin to Taskbar." Voila, it magically appears on the Taskbar.
3. Aero Snap: With just about every laptop being sold now having a widescreen display, have you ever needed to position two documents side-by-side? Rather than tearing your hair out in frustration, Aero Snap offers a quick and easy way to "snap" windows into the left or right half of your screen simply by dragging Windows to the edges. (You can also snap windows vertically.)

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Plan your Windows 7 migration

Are you thinking about migrating to Windows 7? It’s not hard, but due diligence and good planning are paramount for a successful migration. You need to follow best practices, which includes tapping into Microsoft’s readily available — mostly free — tools and resources

Seven tips will tell you everything you need to know for a smooth transition to Windows 7

1. Determine which of your existing PCs will support Windows 7

2. Determine which of your applications will run under Windows 7

3. Decide which version of Windows 7 is right for you

4. Assess the tasks involved and how you’ll manage the migration

5. Perform a test run with a pilot group

6. Migrate in stages

7. Train your employees

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd560772(WS.10).aspx

What You Should Know Before Buying a New Laptop

5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying a New Laptop

Shopping for a new laptop computer can be a very daunting task for new shoppers and previous laptop owners alike. Follow this five question jog-list to choose which laptop features, models, brands or price is right for the new laptop of your dreams.

1. What's will you do with your laptop?

2. Do you travel a lot or will you be homebound?

3. What's your budget?

4. What are others saying?

5. Who has the best price?

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Intel WiDi Wireless Display Technology - HOT

Intel's new WiDi (Wireless Display Interface) technology will start to be bundled with various Core i5 and Core i3 notebooks and it promises to address the Home Theater and Multimedia PC markets with a solution that will enable wireless connectivity of your notebook over HDMI to an HDTV. Using standard 802.11n wireless technologies for transmission of data, Intel describes the product as "a solution that requires a laptop PC based on select 2010 Intel Core processors, Intel HD Graphics, and Intel Centrino wireless with Intel MyWiFi Technology enabled. The laptop needs to have Intel Wireless Display software installed and also an adapter featuring Intel Wireless Display is required to receive the signals from the PC that display them on the TV. This adapter is connected to the TV via either HDMI or standard AV cables." 

Netgear has stepped out early with a receiver product dubbed Push2TV and their block diagram below lays out the solution for you here... 

System Requirement:

Windows 7 Minimum System Requirements

1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 GB of RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)

Direct X 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

DVD-compatible drive

Note: Some product features of Windows 7, such as the ability to watch and record live TV, BitLocker, or navigation through the use of “touch,” may require advanced or additional hardware. Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM and 15 GB of available disk space.

Could Windows Vistas Pretty Looks Be To Blame For It Running So Slow?

If you have switched over from XP to Vista you surly will have known by now that Vista is much slower. This lack of speed has to do with Vista dedicating a lot of its resources to trying to “look pretty”. Making the operating system look nice is great and all but when it comes time to actually get some work done it can be a huge problem. In this article I am going to show you two quick ways to make your Vista perform a it faster but you are going to have to be willing to sacrifice some of Vistas looks in order to get more function. Keep in mind that there really is no point in having your computer look really nice since you are the only person that is really going to be seeing it.

If you are using the Home Premium, Enterprise, Business or Ultimate more likely than not you have the Aero effect turned on. This effect is designed to make your computers windows have a glass like effect that looks cool. It also allows you to have Windows Flip 3D which is just a fancy version of the Alt + Tab combination which allows you to cycle through your currently opened programs. If your not sure what the Flip 3D is, just open a few programs, hold down the Windows Button and press the Tab key a few times – that’s Windows Flip 3D. Now hold down the Alt key and press the Tab key a few times – that’s the old way of cycling through your programs. Here’s how to get rid of the Aero effect:

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Why Cleaning Up After Windows Can Make Your Slow Computer Faster

So your computer’s slow and you have no clue where to start to make it faster? Try cleaning up your Temp folder. Your computer’s operating system is designed to run as quickly as possible but after time it will start to slow down (don’t worry this is natural). Why does this happen? See when your first get your computer it is completely “clean”. Then after you have used it for a while what happens is that it will start to slow down since it starts to accumulate “junk” in different areas of the computers operating system.

All you really have to do is to just go in there and clean up all of that junk – yes it’s that simple (well for the most part, you do also have to know how to tune your computer but that’s more in depth and beyond this article). This is why the idea of registry cleaners is so attractive – it cleans one area of your computer (your registry) to make it faster – but the big problem with registry cleaners is that they only clean one area while there are many different areas that need to be worked on to make your computer faster.

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Registry Cleaners Can Provide Numerous Advantages

Registry cleaners happen to be software programs that are used to resolve certain problems that affect the Windows operating system. Such programs will remove those items that are unwanted and even redundant and in doing so will help in restoring the Windows registry to its normal state. Even though most people agree that using such programs is helpful, there are some people that believe that these programs are neither necessary nor effective.

Registry cleaners are used to solve problems related to configuration data present in the Windows registry and which is no longer required or wanted by the computer operating system. The data that has to be removed can be of any kind including information left behind by software that has not been uninstalled. Moreover, the data can also be any item of information that is no longer needed or it could even be malware oriented settings.

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Image Spam

Image spam is junk email that replaces text with images as a means of fooling spam filters. 

Image delivery works by embedding code in an HTML message that links to an image file on the Web. Image spam is a larger drain on network resources than text spam because image files are larger than ASCII character strings. 
Larger files require more bandwidth and, as a consequence, cause greater degradation of transfer rates. 
If the recipient's email program downloads images automatically, the image appears when the message is opened. The image itself may be a picture or drawing of alphanumeric characters that appears as text to the viewer, although it is processed as an image by the user's computer. Many spam filters, especially older or less sophisticated ones, rely upon certain text criteria on which to make judgments. 

Such filters typically watch for predetermined words in the subject lines of e-mail messages, suspicious word patterns and word frequency. Image spam is not stopped by such filters because it contains no words that can serve as the basis for blocking messages. 

There are a number of approaches to dealing with image spam. In current versions of Outlook, for example, images are not automatically downloaded into messages unless the user has specified that messages from the source can be trusted.

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