Mar 06

How to Change the Color of Vista’s Taskbar

Posted in: Hacks, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista

This article was written on April 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Anyone running the Aero Glass theme in Windows Vista has the option of choosing between multiple color schemes: default, graphite, blue, teal, red, orange, pink, or frost. The color scheme you choose, however, does not affect the color of your Taskbar.

I was just looking through a Neowin post from someone who actually did something pretty clever to get around the limitation. If you have Aero enabled in Vista then that means your taskbar is transparent and you can see through it and onto your desktop’s background. So what he decided to do is modify the bottom portion of his background to make the Taskbar appear to be a different color.

Vista Color Taskbar
Click for fullsize version

As you can see in the screenshot above he chose to do a rainbow gradient on the background so that all of the colors flowed together quite nicely. I don’t think I’ll be doing a rainbow effect like he did, but this is quite a clever “hack” to make the Taskbar any color that you would like it to be.

If you’re looking for a free program that will let you apply similar gradient effects (which make the colors blend nicely together) then you should checkout Paint.NET. It doesn’t cost a thing and with a little bit of work you should be able to get the exact look that you want.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Mar 05

Run Multiple Versions of IE in Vista

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on February 18, 2009 by CyberNet.

internet explorer collections.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
For the most part Microsoft hasn’t made it very easy for people who want to run multiple versions of Internet Explorer on their machine, which can be difficult for web developers who need to test sites against older versions of the browser. A new tool, however, called Internet Explorer Collection will let you pick and choose which versions you would like installed on your computer.

Once you being the installation process you’ll be prompted with a screen similar to what you see above. Versions of Internet Explorer that are not compatible with your operating system should be automatically disabled just like how IE 1.0 is since it’s running on Vista. Similarly you can also checkout the homepage of the software to see a chart of which versions of IE are compatible with your operating system before you even try to install them. Sorry to break it to you, but no operating system will work with all versions of IE that are bundled in the app.

Internet Explorer Collection is frequently updated, and even includes the latest IE 8.0 Release Candidate 1 build. Just be careful… once you start using Internet Explorer 1.5 you may not want to go back to anything else. :)

Get Internet Explorer Collection for Windows

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Mar 03

Microsoft tablet OS not coming until fall 2012?

Posted in: Microsoft, operating system, OperatingSystem, os, rumor, rumors, tablet, tablet pc, TabletPc, tablets, Today's Chili, Windows, windows 8, Windows8

We’ve caught wind of many whispers about a Windows designed specifically for tablets, but the latest scuttlebutt states we won’t get to add them to our mobile arsenal anytime soon — Bloomberg‘s anonymous sources report that Microsoft won’t release a tablet operating system until the 2012 back-to-school season, and will only begin to publically test the OS at the end of this year. That suggests not only a timeframe, but also a likely plan — it’s not hard to imagine Microsoft would enjoy a slice of the educational market before iPads replace textbooks entirely at schools with cash to burn. Of course, Dell seems to think there’ll be a Windows 8 slate in January of next year.

Microsoft tablet OS not coming until fall 2012? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 03

IE 8 to Enforce Standards Mode by Default

Posted in: Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on March 04, 2008 by CyberNet.

ie7 standards 

Microsoft made a decision over a month ago that Internet Explorer 8 will not use their “super standards” mode by default. They said that websites would be able to opt-in to having IE 8 render sites in a standards-compliant way, but they thought it would be best if they broke as few sites as possible.

According the IE Blog Microsoft has switched their way of thinking. They will now be enforcing the “super standards” mode by default, and making it so that developers can specify in the code whether they want the site to be rendered like it was in Internet Explorer 7. They try to say that this decision came because of the feedback from the community, but they also mentioned that it will help them avoid any legal issues:

Microsoft recently published a set of Interoperability Principles. Thinking about IE8’s behavior with these principles in mind, interpreting web content in the most standards compliant way possible is a better thing to do.

We think that acting in accordance with principles is important, and IE8’s default is a demonstration of the interoperability principles in action. While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue.

I think that this is the best move by Microsoft because it will help push for more standards-compliant websites to be produced. It will be interesting to see how fast websites are to converge to the standards implemented in Internet Explorer 8. I’m guessing that we won’t really see the effects of it for 5 or so years after its release which is when a majority of users will have IE 8 on their computer.

Read more about this at the IE Blog and the Microsoft Press Release

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Mar 03

Charting the upgrade path from DOS 5.0 to Windows 7 (video)

Posted in: Microsoft, Today's Chili, upgrade, video, Windows, Windows Vista, Windows XP
Charting the upgrade path from DOS 5.0 to Windows 7 (video)

If you’re old enough to remember tweaking your Autoexec.bat and tackling IRQ conflicts, days when launching Windows required typing “win” at a command prompt, prepare for a blast of nostalgia. YouTuber Andrew Tait (aka “TheRasteri”) took a freshly minted VMWare instance and spent what looks to be a full day running through every version of Windows starting with DOS 5.0 and Windows 1.0, which was basically just Explorer paired with one heck of a crummy text editor. From there he dutifully leads us on a crazy upgrade path all the way up to modern times, charting interesting things like how long a version of Doom installed in DOS ran (failed in Windows 2000, but worked again in Windows XP) and when color settings made in Windows 2.0 were finally overwritten (also in 2000). It’s 10 minutes in length and is probably the most interesting video you won’t watch today.

Continue reading Charting the upgrade path from DOS 5.0 to Windows 7 (video)

Charting the upgrade path from DOS 5.0 to Windows 7 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 01

Microsoft Windows Embedded Compact 7 now available, may or may not make its way to tablets

Posted in: Microsoft, tablets, Today's Chili, Windows

Back in June at Computex, Microsoft announced the successor to Windows CE — Windows Embedded Compact 7 – and it’s finally hitting the general availability mark today. The guys in Redmond posted a 180-day trial of the final WEC7 bits yesterday, and while it is unclear when it was released to manufacturers, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley notes that the digital signature on the bits is February 19th. So, what does it all mean? Well, you’ll definitely want to check out our Windows Embedded Compact 7 explained post, but we should start seeing the new OS powering phones (don’t forget WP7 is built on the Win CE kernel), medical devices, retail systems, and maybe even some tablets soon. As for the latter category, you may rememeber that we saw that WEC7 prototype tablet above at Computex, however while some like ASUS promised early on that it would use the software for its EP101TC, it quickly ditched that idea and went with Android. Our guess is that will be the case for most out there, but the lightweight OS, which now can run on ARM V7 architecture, has built-in support for Silverlight for Windows Embedded and Flash 10.1, clearly has advantages over Windows 7 on tablets at the moment. Hit the source link for some more details, and we’ll make sure to keep an eye out for new devices running the new wordy OS.

Microsoft Windows Embedded Compact 7 now available, may or may not make its way to tablets originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 01

Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 hands-on

Posted in: cebit, hands-on, intel, Today's Chili, Windows, windows 7, Windows7

Unless you’re eagerly anticipating your IT department handing one of these to you, something tells us the Stylistic Q550 isn’t the tablet you’re looking for. Why’s that? Everything about the experience screams “corporate,” starting with our time at Fujitsu’s booth earlier today where business dealings to deploy the tablet in some corporate environment were literally happening before our very eyes. There was only one unit in the vicinity — and the suits were relentless in trying to get their paws on it — but we spent just long enough with it to figure out that there are far, far better-suited consumer options out there; as far as we can tell, that’s exactly how Fujitsu wants it. That opinion was further reinforced by the presence of a smart card reader on the side (for secure logins), a fingerprint scanner on back, and old-school pen input, which Fujitsu tells us that legacy tablet users (read: medical personnel and field data entry folks) still want. It can take fingers, too, but we felt like the quality of the display is compromised a bit for the dual-mode support. Interestingly, there’s no place to store the pen in the tablet anyway; you’ll need the accessory case for that.

The company is talking about its custom Windows 7 skin as a key differentiator. The build they had on the demo unit was a little buggy, but at any rate, we came away with the impression that it’s basically just a finger-friendly view to launch apps; fortunately, the full Windows experience — which is just as non-touch-optimized as ever — is just a tap away. We were hoping the Oak Trail guts would keep everything snappy, but the pre-release code here was actually lagging pretty badly as we navigated from screen to screen. Don’t get us wrong: we’re sure these are precisely the specs that some enterprise customers are looking for… but as an individual, gadget-loving, tablet-wanting human being, we’re pretty sure they aren’t the specs that you’re looking for.

Gallery: Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 hands-on at CeBIT 2011

Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 01

ASUS Eee PC 1015B and 1215B hands-on

Posted in: AMD, ASUS, cebit, hands-on, netbook, Today's Chili, Windows, windows 7, Windows7

Okay, picture an ASUS Eee PC 1015. Got it? Good — now picture it with AMD Fusion internals. Boom: the 1015B is born. We spied versions in both white and black trim here at CeBIT, promising 1080p output in your choice of 1.2GHz single-core and 1GHz dual-core APUs, both with ATI Radeon HD 6250 graphics, 1GB of RAM (expandable to 2), and Bluetooth 3.0 along with 802.11b/g/n WiFi. If you’re looking for something a little beefier, ASUS has a Fusion remake of the 1215, too — the 1215B — with many of the same features but the added benefit of a larger 12.1-inch WXGA LCD, an optional 1.6GHz AMD E350 dual-core processor, and up to 4GB of RAM. No word on when these will be in retail channels, but by all appearances, these are production or very-near-production models on display here at the show, so we imagine they’ll be popping up any time now.

Gallery: ASUS Eee PC 1015B hands-on at CeBIT 2011

Gallery: ASUS Eee PC 1215B hands-on at CeBIT 2011

ASUS Eee PC 1015B and 1215B hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 28

Microsoft to demo Windows 8 tablet interface in June?

Posted in: Microsoft, tablet, tablet pc, TabletPc, tablets, Today's Chili, Windows, windows 8, Windows8
At this point, the only thing keeping Microsoft in the tablet conversation are rumors of its Windows 8 or Windows Next, and lo and behold we’ve got another one to add to the pile. While we heard last week that Microsoft could release the beta of Windows 8 for tablets at PDC in September, “sources at Microsoft” have now told Business Insider, that the company is hoping to show a public “design demo” of the operating system’s tablet UI as early as June. The timing is interesting — and it actually lines up very well with Computex, where the company does have a big presence — but we’re also intrigued by the part that says Microsoft’s taking “a more Apple-like approach to interface design” and that it will use Metro UI pieces. That’s obviously similar to what Microsoft showed us at last year’s Computex (picture of that above) — except it was using Windows Embedded Compact 7 underneath. The article also mentions that it will draw on some Media Center-like styling, which also syncs up with some other whispers we’ve heard. Yep, there’s a lot of rumors, and well, with this talk of summer / fall it looks like we’ll be dealing with plenty more before we hear anything official.

Microsoft to demo Windows 8 tablet interface in June? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 28

MSI Dual Pad concept eyes-on (video)

Posted in: cebit, msi, Today's Chili, video, Windows, windows 7, Windows7

Complementing the integrated projector concept introduced at CES last month, MSI brought a new not-for-sale hottie to its CeBIT booth this week in the form of the Dual Pad, which is… well, literally two WindPads placed on top of one another. The idea is that the pads can be taken apart and used as two completely independent Windows 7 tablets when necessary — “you and your girlfriend on a trip” was the example given to us during the press conference — but when you piece them together, they become one mega-tablet capable of operating essentially as a single dual-screen netbook (a hingeless, permanently-open one). Again, it’s a pure concept; there are no plans for commercialization that we could eke out, but we can’t imagine it’d be cheap since you’d effectively be buying two complete tablets. Follow the break for video!

Gallery: MSI Dual Pad concept eyes-on

Continue reading MSI Dual Pad concept eyes-on (video)

MSI Dual Pad concept eyes-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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