Posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes
Not everyone knows, but all of our brilliant Windows 7 Themes here at Everything-Microsoft also work perfectly fine on Windows 8. So if you’re looking to give your Windows 8 Desktop a bit of a refresh, be sure to go and check out our extensive gallery of Windows 8 Themes.
Today I have 4 Water Inspired themes which will work on both Windows 7 and Windows 8. There’s nothing more majestic and graceful than flowing rivers, gushing waterfalls and churning seas which is why this selection of themes will be be brilliant for any Windows 7 or Windows 8 desktop.
Blue Water Theme
Bodies of water in all their varied magnificence are seen in this free theme for Windows 7: reflecting the lights of the city, flowing under picturesque stone bridges, winding through rolling hills, and glowing with a tropical ocean blue.
Blue Water Theme
Download
Australian Shores
The best of Australian beaches and waterways are on display in this free Windows 7theme by photographer Anton Gorlin, including alpine lakes, beaches lit up with pastel sunsets, and towering hills of sand under brilliant blue skies.
Australian Shores
Download
Aqua Dynamic Theme
Churning seas, rushing rivers, and gracefully curling waves are just a few of the images you’ll get with this free Windows 7 theme. Water: powerful, serene, and dynamic, captured by our community of contributors in splendid color and form. This theme updates automatically through an RSS feed.
Aqua Dynamic theme
Download
Waterfalls Theme
Gurgling canyon creeks, rushing mountain streams, and cascading, terraced rivers: Waterfalls in all their glorious diversity are featured in this free theme for Windows 7.
4 Water Inspired Windows 7/8 Themes was posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.
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Posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes
This has probably happened to you. You find a program that you want to download. You start the installation process and then you start to get hit with questions about adding other programs. The check boxes are already checked. The programs may be good or not, but you’re flustered because all you want is that one program. Oh Crap.
Yes indeed. Crapware was added to your system. But more than that. You buy a new PC, and guess what…it is loaded with programs that you don’t want or intend to use. You get crapware. That is annoying because the OEM that manufactures the PC is making money on the software that is pre-installed. And the odd thing is that Microsoft now has a plan to help you remove it. For $99.
.
Good right? Well think about it. The crapware is slowing down the performance of the PC. So you do want to get rid of annoyware. But why was it installed in the first place? Simple, it’s marketing. You get it and later pay a fee to keep using it. The manufacturer gets money to push it into the system, and now Microsoft can get money to remove it. If you want to get rid of it, you have to go to one of Microsoft’s 16 stores, and they will remove it for you. But that is not very convenient.
Or
You could download (sure) a program called PC Decapifier. It is free and it will do the same thing for you.
This tool is for you to use that helps remove programs, or unnecessary startup items and icons that can slow down your PC. The software gives you step by step guidance, and it even offers recommendations on what programs to remove. Indeed many of those programs can be removed unattended, which makes it easy and convenient to use. There is a free version for personal use, and a professional version to purchase is also available.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Remove Crapware for $99 or Free was posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.
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Hello,
I’ve a VB6 DLL called from a macro in an Excel add-in, which works
fine under Office X32b
In Office X64bits, I get an error "Activex component can’t create
object" and it looks that it is quite impossible to call directly a
32bits dll from Office X64Bits
As a turnaround, I call the dll from a small VB6 exe and call the exe
Posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes
We are expecting to see the Release Preview of Windows 8 sometime around the beginning of next month and with it we can expect to see plenty of new updates to the built in Metro Apps.
According to the Verge, Microsoft has started updating most of the core Metro Apps in Windows 8 which are due to be revealed alongside the Release Preview. The updated apps have been spotted in internal builds of the Release Preview and are no longer badged with the “app preview” that is to be found in the developers preview.
It’s being reported that the Mail, Calendar, Messaging, Photos, Music and Reader app have all received updates.
These apps haven’t officially been released to the Windows Store for us to update to on the consumer preview as of yet, however Microsoft have updated the app descriptions for the Photos app and Reader app.
The updated photos app can be seen above with a full screen wallpaper and smaller folder thumbnails. You can see the Reader app has been tweaked as well. Of course these are only screenshots so in reality there’s plenty more that’s been tweaked.
I do expect Microsoft to be updating these apps anyway, after all while they may appear impressive and polished in demos, once you start using them in real life you start to notice little flaws and things that are still unfinished. I’m sure Microsoft will be eager to iron these bugs out once the Release Preview makes its way out to the public.
Source:
The Verge
Updated Metro Apps Coming With Windows 8 Release Preview was posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.
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Posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes
The Europeans have had fun with Microsoft. An anti-trust suit filed in Europe in the late 90′s forced Microsoft to open it’s Operating system to other browsers besides the Internet Explorer. Now with Windows 8 in the mix, and especially with Windows 8 RT a potential anti-trust investigation is possible.
First the US Senate is poised to investigate Microsoft for its actions to see if it is in violation of the agreement it entered in the late 1990′s on its monopoly activity. (funny…it was found to be a monopoly but what happened…not much…big deal…See the CNN Summary.)
Europe in 2003 also went after Microsoft for it’s OS and media player connection. A judgement forced Microsoft to detach the media player from the OS. And later, the “Browser” deal went into affect, which untied Internet Explorer from the Operating System, allowing other browsers to run on the OS.
Now a new look at Microsoft is underway, because the question is a tablet a PC? The original judgement applied to PC’s and Servers, not tablets. Microsoft now has tablets in the works, and there are two variations, Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT (or ARM). There are investigations questioning how much compliance is necessary to the judgement. But one problem with this is that the ARM version, comes from a new design in Chip technology.
What is ARM?
ARM refers to devices that use technology from ARM Holdings PLC, a company based in the United Kingdom. It develops intellectual property for semiconductors. But instead of manufacturing actual semiconductor chips, ARM develops the technology and then licenses its intellectual property to partner companies that produce the semiconductors, chips, and devices. So ARM partners utilize ARM technology to produce system-on-chip designs, paying ARM a license fee for the original IP, plus a royalty on every chip or wafer produced. Right now it is a technology is currently being used in 90% of smartphones, 80% of digital cameras, and 28% of all electronic devices.
Windows 8 and ARM
Microsoft will release two versions on Windows 8, one running ARM, and one without. ARM devices will feature a Metro mode, that is a tile-based, touch-optimized interface, as well as a more traditional Windows desktop mode. Now here is the important part. Apps designed for the Metro interface will be supported on both ARM and Windows 8 on x86/64, and ARM includes support for hardware-accelerated HTML5. It will offer desktop versions of the key apps in the new Office 15 like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
But the kicker is that legacy Windows apps will run under Windows 8 on PCs, but not on ARM devices. This means that developers will not be able to recode their current Windows apps for ARM, under desktop mode. And that is where the problem comes in for other software manufacturers. This is the original problem they had with Microsoft 10 years ago. Can their software run on the Microsoft platform, or are there restrictions, and are these restrictions in violation of the 2004 agreement?
That is what the Europeans will try to determine.
Source: zdnet
A New Microsoft Anti-Trust Suit in the Making? was posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.
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Slick…but who needs it?SDTimes.com (blog)It's an online IDE and compiler for Python, node.js, PHP, JavaScript, HTML, C, C++, Ruby, Java, C# and VB.NET. Think of it as Google Docs for developers. compilr.com instantiates a bunch of hot buzzwords. It's cloud-based. It's virtual. It's SaaS.
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Posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes
If you or your business is thinking about pursuing Cloud operations, the big initial question for you is how do I know if the Cloud is the right solution for the business? So with that in mind, Microsoft has prepared a Cloud Assessment Tool that will allow you to make that assessment. This tool has four parts that can help you see what your standing is vis-a-vis the working Cloud. The steps are Cloud Drivers and Cloud Obstacles, Infrastructure management, service delivery and automation, and application management.
Section 1: Cloud Drivers and Cloud Obstacles,
In the first section, Cloud Drivers and Cloud Obstacles, you are able identify the IT priorities and obstacles that prevent a business from reaching them. You can assess your priorities on the basis of costs, agility, and maintenance. Then you can assess the obstacles that prevent you from reaching those priorities based on security concerns, compliance issues, compatibility problems, capital expenditure, and operational budgets.
Cloud-Assessment-Tool-1
Section 2: Infra structure management
There are three parts in Section 2. These involve assessments in how the organization maintains its IT system, how secure and compliant it is and how well does the organization maximize the IT infrastructure.
Cloud-Assessment-Tool-2
Section 3: Service Delivery and Automation
Section 3 also has three parts, how the IT infrastructure scales to meet changing needs? How mature are the organization’s IT processes, and how quickly can you add new IT capabilities? By answering those questions, using the marker, you set the conditions for service delivery and automation.
Cloud-Assessment-Tool-3
Section 4: Application Management
The last section, application management deals with how the company deals with users and the IT operations. There are three parts to this section, communication with users, how users can request services, and measuring consumption of IT operations. By answering the questions, you can see how the users relate to your IT offerings.
Cloud-Assessment-Tool-4
Output
The output section brings your company type, size, and location together for final analysis.
The Assessment
Once you have finished the analysis operations, it is time to present the assessment. Here is the result.
Cloud-Assessment
To perform your own operation go to the Microsoft Cloud Assessment Tool site.
Microsoft’s Cloud Assessment Tool was posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.
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Posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes
We still have no official word on when Windows 8 will officially be released to the public, but more and more evidence appears to be pointing towards the last quarter of this year. The first wave of Intel based Tablets and Hybrids running Windows 8 are expected to hit stores by November of this year.
A source “familiar with the matter” told Cnet that Microsoft and their manufacturing partners are on a tight schedule, but November is when we should expect to start seeing these Windows 8 devices. Obviously manufacturers are reliant on Microsoft to get Windows 8 finished off in time so that they can start testing the final RTM version of it.
”Looking at what Windows is trying to achieve not only with a new OS, but a new OS that needs to run four to five architectures — three ARM, Intel, and AMD,”
We’ve also been told to not just expect a flurry of tablets, but that “more than 50 percent” of the designs will be hybrids which combine traditional laptops with tablets.
A mock up of HP's Windows 8 Tablet
A lot of these devices are expected to be running on Intel’s new “Clover Trail” Atom chip which is Intel’s first dual-core Atom designed chip based on its 32-nanometer process technology. It promises excellent performance coupled with excellent battery life.
Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga Hybrid
Of course plenty of these devices, more so the hybrids are expected to be running on Intel’s higher performance Sandy Bridge processors.
So all of these devices are expected to start shipping in November. This would lead us to believe that Windows 8 itself wont be available until November either. If this is the case, Microsoft are cutting it pretty close to the Holiday Shopping Period.
Is November too late for Windows 8 and Windows 8 Hybrids/Tablets? And will you be buying a new Windows 8 machine?
Let us know in the comments below
Source:
Cnet
Windows 8 Tablets and Hybrids Expected By November was posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.
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Developer | Web | Wellington CityGeekzoneNet stack C#, VB.NET or MSSQL or something fairly similar. You\'ll posses a broad understanding of coding methods, web platforms and have a background in web-centred development languages; including HTML & HTML5, CSS JavaScript.
and more »
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Posted on Everything Microsoft – Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes
If a business wishes to purse the Microsoft Azure Cloud technology, what features will the get for the service? Here is a summary of those accounts. Licensing of the Microsoft private cloud solutions occur on a per processor basis with unlimited virtualization rights. This licensing provision lets a company get the cloud computing benefits of scale with unlimited virtualization and lower costs consistently and predictably over time.
What criteria should you follow to determine the approach to using the Cloud?
Embracing the cloud in the organization is not a step to be taken lightly, even for sophisticated enterprises. Take the concept to heart, walk before you run. So in that capacity start by identifying the business case for the cloud or private cloud within the organization. What is driving the initiative to moving to the cloud?
From an IT perspective, do you want to make IT operations more predictable and responsive? Or perhaps it is cost efficiencies on server racks, power and cooling that you are looking at? Or is it a matter of costs related to staff throughout the life cycle?
What about organizational or regulatory compliance requirements are they driving the business case? Second, identify, within the organization applications and staff that are receptive to a platform shift. Perhaps it’s a department or group that has adopted virtualization or partitioned an application for public and private cloud deployment.
The upshot is that existing groups like these are prime candidates to adopting cloud like characteristics in their environment and taking the organization to the next step. Many organizations are starting out with Private Cloud for development and test environments, before they move their operations for other organizations to see, which would be the Public Cloud.
These scenarios and their often erratic usage profiles are ideally suited to private and provide a low risk way of exploring the technology and operational capabilities required to effectively deliver that service.
Lastly, once operational, then run book procedures which have been adopted and approved an overall plan for deployment and consolidation of new and existing services that can be built and executed upon.
Source: Technet
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