Unboxing Windows 7 Ultimate “Signature Edition”

I was excited to read all about Windows 7 and how it is better than its predecessor Windows Vista. I have a desktop system (AMD 64 x2 with 8GB RAM) running Vista.

Today I received the Party Pack for Windows 7. I was excited and have captured on video the “ultimate unboxing” :-) using my Vista laptop and a sorta good & loyal Web Cam (lasted me about 4 yrs now :-)).

The pack includes Windows 7 Ultimate “Signature Edition” (32 & 64 bit versions – but only one product key which is stated to work only once for either 32 or 64). By the way, when I heard of “Signature Edition”, I thought it may contain something more than the regular Ultimate edition available. As of now, all I saw was that the cover has Stevie’s signature on it. Need to install it to see if there is anything more to it.

Apart from this, the pack contains:
poster with Windows 7 desktop design
One deck of playing cards with Windows 7 design
One puzzle with Windows 7 design
Couple of streamers, balloons, napkins & Tote bags with Windows 7 design
One table top centerpiece

I guess that is all good, but what really needs to be seen is if Windows 7 really lives up to its hype….of being much better than Vista.

In the next few days, I plan to install it on my desktop and see how it is as compared to Vista. I will post my review of the same soon. Till then, enjoy the video.

 

 

BTW, no matter what people say about Vista, I have been using it for development in Visual Studio apart from browsing and games and I have not yet faced the problems reported by many. Frankly, I guess it all depends on how well a user knows how to tweak it :-) which I agree should have been made more easily available to the end users.

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Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8

Get ready to download the latest version of Internet Explorer browser. Microsoft is set to release Internet Explorer 8 for public download today.

Couple of additions in IE8 include "Accelerators" which allow users to right-click on addresses or other texts on an HTML page to go straight to a map or put add a new post to a blog, etc. Microsoft has decoupled IE from its latest version of Windows Operating System. It also features a Compatiblity option which resolves most site compatibility issues and makes Web sites that are designed for older browsers look better.

Another good feature included is the ability to Surf the web without saving history or use a shared computer without leaving a trace via the new "InPrivate Browsing" and "InPrivate Filtering" features.

You can Search with detailed suggestions from your favorite search providers and browsing history. The Instant Search Box shows it as an instantaneous image and text suggestions as you type.

Head on to Microsoft and download IE 8.

Internet Explorer 8 (Release Candidate 1)

Microsoft has released RC 1 for IE 8. You can find it here. I had installed IE 8 Beta on my Windows XP box and played around with it. I was having multiple issues  - one being that it was pretty slow and other being that many sites were not compatible with IE 8. But major was that it used to crash often.

Some of the features of IE 8 which I like are WebSlices, InPrivate Browsing, Accelerators, Compatibility View, Caret Browsing and Tab Grouping. One other feature is adding headers within the Sites, based on which automatically the Compatibility View is triggered and the site which normally would not have been viewable properly in IE 8 is displayed within IE 8. The Compatibility view emulates IE 7 for those pages which have the following added header:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />
WebSite Admins can set full site to be IE7 compatible for IE8 viewing by adding new header with name="X-UA-Compatible" and value="IE=EmulateIE7".

All these features have been maintained with the release of RC1. Areas where I could immediately see the difference were the speed and stability which is way better than on Beta 1. This was anticipated as RC1 is usually much better in many aspects than Beta 1.

Head on to Microsoft and download Internet Explorer 8 (Release Candidate 1)

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World Energy Issue

It is very sad that the whole world is suffering from high prices of Oil.Yes, the whole world. Some may think that the Oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia will not be suffering like the rest of the world, though true, they too feel the heat. These countries import food and many other commodities from food products to industrial goods.

Oil prices impact the cost of all produce and products and commodities in the world. Higher the cost of Oil, higher the prices for all goods. Higher prices for commodities imported by these countries will result in an increase in cost of oil to recover from the cost of higher imports. It appears to be a vicious cycle which very rarely will result in low prices for all.

The best solution for this is to look for alternative energy resources. The race for an affordable alternative energy started long time back, but then died down due to the low cost of Oil. Many alternative energy sources were found but not exploited. These are Solar, Wind, ocean currents, etc. Oil and natural gas has limited resources. But the Solar/Wind energy resources are those which will never end. Yet, there was no good Government or private encouragement given to those who wanted to explore these energy resources till now.

Once the cost of Oil started to rise, many new companies jumped into the bandwagon of alternative energy and within couple of years came out with better and more efficient means of harnessing energy from Light and Wind.

Biofuels is not the answer. Remember, Biofuels are made from natural resources. If made from crops, more crops will be grown for these fuels thereby increasing cost of the food products made from these crops. It will be more efficient if BioFuels is made from natural waste - corn stalks (corn will be sold as food product while the waste stalks can be used to generate bio fuel), cow dung (it releases methane gas which has been used for quite sometime in India for generating electricity in villages), etc.

Just imagine, if huge efforts were put into finding good and better methods of harnessing energy from Wind/Light/Water much earlier, then we would not have seen the huge increase in cost of Oil and the resulting increase in prices of various commodities.

I do not see the high efficient Solar Panels being sold by retailers, even though if available, there will be a very high demand for these panels. Maybe it is some sort of Business policy so that they can control and maintain the high cost of these panels. I guess, Government should intervene and ensure that the cost of these energy resources are reduced for local consumption. More like tax-rebates for manufacturers for local sales.

Installing Wind and water turbines in the oceans is also a very good way to harness the unlimited power of nature. Governments should provide huge tax-concessions to those companies in this business.

I see that in the next five years, individuals will be able to buy these High Efficient Solar Panels from retail hardware stores and harnessing the power of wind light and water to manage home energy in a more efficient way. This will be possible due to the high number of companies who are jumping into the Solar/Wind/Water energy harvesting.

Till then, let us hope we can survive with the increasing costs of commodities, which are actually increasing at a rate which cannot be matched by the increases in salaries.

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Welcome to this blog. Here I will be providing my views on the current and old technology and technology related news and issues.

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