Posts Tagged ‘Windows’
Howto Make Dell XPS M1530 Multimedia Keys Work With iTunes!!! January 21st, 2010
I have being using itunes for a long time on my Dell XPS M1530… The only thing that bugs me while using itunes is that the multimedia keys only work when the itunes main window is in focus, which is very irritating…
After a little bit of googling I found out this post and his solution works… This is what you have to do to fix this issue….
Download this plugin: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Apple, Dell XPS, iTunes, Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7
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‘Googlle’ opens technology certification ‘school’ in India!!! January 4th, 2010
Read the title again….. ‘GOOGLLE‘
The website for the new school, found here, is as bogus as it gets. Not only does it rip off Google’s logo, but it even uses the same favicon, all whilst having dead links to various web pages. According to TechCrunch, Googlle offers two different certifications: the “GCPA – Googlle Certified Professional in Advanced Computing,” and the “GCPE – Googlle Certified Professional in E-Commerce.” The first certification hopes to educate the students in technologies such as Windows and Linux, and the second teaches skills such as proficiency with Photoshop.
Not only that, but there are also, “Modular courses – duration 60 days to 90 days that can enhance your computer skills and offer you “GOOGLLE” certification, no matter what your specific requirement.” The courses are said to take two years to complete, though, worryingly, the main website shows a campus which apparently doesn’t exist. The real question now is whether or not the site will remain operational for much longer; no doubt Google will take action, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Tags: Google, Linux, Microsoft, Windows
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Lunascape – The Hybrid engine browser!!! November 11th, 2009
Lunascape is a web browser that handles all three major web rendering engines — Firefox’s Gecko, Internet Explorer’s Trident and WebKit (which is used by Safari and Chrome). Lunascape Corp., a Tokyo-based web software company, offers the browser as a free download. The team recently released the first beta of Lunascape 6 ORION.
As a browser, Lunascape probably has the most to offer to web developers, who can use a single application to check how their work looks in three different rendering engines, namely Trident, Gecko, and WebKit. It also comes with features like script and Java blocking, and when using the Trident engine, you can block ActiveX too. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Firefox, Lunascape, Windows, Windows 7
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Ubuntu 9.10 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7!!! November 3rd, 2009
Apple let Snow Leopard out of its cage earlier this autumn, and Canonical will release another beast this week: Karmic Koala, otherwise known as the open-source operating system Ubuntu 9.10. This comes on the heels of Microsoft’s launch of Windows 7, a major update of Vista. So, there are a lot of reasons for us to be excited.
Since I use Mac OS X (dual boot with Xubuntu) on Macbook Pro, Ubuntu on my main workstation, and Windows XP on some of our computers used for our family business, I’m looking forward to these consecutive “big-time” updates. However, I still haven’t made up my mind if I’ll immediately upgrade to the new versions. But I did a little research and collected some important information so that I could somehow find out early on if the upgrades will be worth it.
For all of you, I’m going to highlight the main features of Ubuntu 9.10, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and Windows 7. I will also share my quick observation later on.
Read the complete story
Tags: Apple, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Ubuntu, Windows
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Microsoft unleashes 20,000 lines of Linux code!!! July 21st, 2009
Publication: ZDNet
This is the first time Microsoft has made Microsoft-developed code available directly to the Linux community. The Redmondians have released various pieces of code under different open-source licenses over the past few years, but this is the first time Microsoft has released Linux code.
Microsoft made the Linux driver announcement on July 20, the opening day of the O’Reilly OSCON open-source conference.
Tags: Linux, Microsoft, Windows
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Difference between Microsoft and Apple!!! July 6th, 2009
With both Microsoft and Apple have announced that their latest operating systems Windows 7 and Snow Leopard. Over the years I have noted a difference between them.
Microsoft is a behemoth, with its fingers in so many pies that there is not much in this world of microprocessors that doesn’t have a fingerprint of Microsoft on it. Microsoft is in almost everything, from music players, to the obvious computers, to the not-so-obvious automobiles, with its Sync product.
While Apple is not a company who has an overarching plan to ‘conquer worlds’. Because of this focus, Apple has, today, a growing number of fans who can not wait for the next market into which Apple positions itself. The Apple customer has no ill will toward the company, even though it has been pointed out, many times, an Apple product is overpriced, compared to its peers.
I have also noted a difference between Microsoft’s development cycles and Apple’s.
Apple is like the sniper who lies 1000 yards away behind the treeline, hidden under heavy camouflage. They wait and plan and remain invisible until the objective is lined up just right and the wind is in their favor. Then they squeeze the trigger once and it’s an instant kill 
(Which isn’t to say that the iPhone (for example) is perfect). But they have an almost perfect record of launching new products into a secure orbit on the first try.
While Microsoft is more like the coked-up druglord in “Scarface” (think his name was Tony Montana). They burst in with an AK-47 on full-auto and start spraying all over the room, slowly adjusting their fire until the line of bullet holes they’re punching into the wall catches up with the gangland rival who’s making a desperate run for the balcony . It’s noisy, messy and fully publicized. But still they get the same results.
Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Windows
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Reasons to put Linux/Ubuntu on your netbook!!!
June 10th, 2009
Microsoft pounded itself on the chest in April saying over 96% of netbooks now use Windows. This made me somewhat sad, because I was hoping these little computers could be the break Linux had been waiting for.
The first couple of netbooks all had Linux pre-installed. Unfortunately, Asus chose to go with a custom Linux distribution for which it has yet to release its first update. No Firefox 3, no Flash 10 and no easy way to get additional software. Except for the easy to use interface, they came up with the worst example of what Linux can be. But if there’s one thing Linux offers its choice. It is my opinion that Ubuntu is the most user-friendly Linux distro out there, and I highly recommend giving it a go on your netbook.
Here are some reasons why you should use linux(Ubuntu) on netbooks instead of windows…
1. It does everything what netbooks should do…
There’s no Adobe Photoshop for Linux, and the same goes for many other professional applications. There are alternatives, but that’s not the point here. Running Photoshop on an Atom processor is no fun. That’s the kind of thing you do on a desktop PC or a high-end laptop. Ubuntu comes with everything installed that you need to surf the web, chat, download (a bittorrent client!) and email. Oh, and OpenOffice too.
2. It’s extremely configurable
If you’re even slightly geekish (like me 
), you’ll probably like tinkering with a new Operating System. Ubuntu, like any Linux distribution is extremely configurable. Lots of options to play with, tons of new software to get to know. But even if you’re not into all that, you’ll find Ubuntu to be incredibly easy to operate and very stable.
3. It’s got fast boot time
Ubuntu 9.04 version of Linux has proven that it doesn’t need to take minutes to boot into a fully operational OS. Intel’s Moblin also boots in seconds, even on slower hardware. Because of the nature of open source software, Linux would always have an edge over windows in this field.
4. F for Free and Freedom
When you use Windows XP on netbooks, it takes a long time to boot and then you have to wait for the updates to finish. Firewall, virus definitions, Windows Updates. Not fun at all. And once all that was done you’d be looking at XP’s ugly (and ancient) user interface. It’s like working on your PC, just a lot slower.
With Ubuntu, using your netbook has becomes a little adventurous, because everything normally don’t work out of the box you’ll occasionally need to figure out how to do something, and that’s when you come across Linux’ best feature. Its user community is full of helpful people. I’ve never not been able to do something I wanted, and even the most challenging issues took no longer than minutes to fix.
Talk about Microsoft Statistics.. 
Most netbooks might be sold with Windows on them, but the only reason you didn’t get one with Linux was because those weren’t actually available. Very few Linux models are, so everyone wanting to run Linux on them will still need to buy a Windows version. That will definitely skew the statistics.
But I don’t want to be a poor sport here… It’s upto people to decide what they like or dislike. Some people like Windows because they are familiar to it.. Others like to be adventurous and wanna go off the track.. for them there’s Linux..
Cheers
Tags: Dell XPS, Linux, netbooks, Ubuntu, Windows
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Virtualbox – A bridge between Windows and Linux!!!
May 11th, 2009
This post is not for someone who has a fair amount of experience. It’s for someone who is either looking to convert to Linux and is stuck with Windows or someone new to Linux but not quite familiar with it yet. VirtualBox is a virtualization software. In layman’s language if you’re running an operating system, you can run another operating system independently and at the same time as the host operating system.
For example: If i’m running Ubuntu 8.0. I needed to run Microsoft Publisher. Now Scribus is an alternative but maybe not be quite as smoothly as I’d like. So what to do?
I google “download virtual box”. I download and gdebi it. Start it up. Put in an XP Pro disk/Windows Vista etc.. I start the virtual machine and I’m off. In about half an hour I’ve got a fully functioning XP installation running within my Linux install:
As you can see here I’ve got VirtualBox running which is loading Windows XP on Ubuntu 8.10. It’s not a very powerful machine either, any computer with at least 2 GB RAM and any 128MB higher graphics card can run it.
This is a great solution if you’re trying to bridge that gap between the two or if you just want to run some windows applications….
Tags: Linux, Ubuntu, Virutalbox, Windows
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Windows 7!!!
May 10th, 2009
The first question that strikes me is What is Windows 7?
Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) is slated as the next release of Microsoft Windows. Unlike its predecessor, Windows 7 is intended to be an incremental upgrade with the goal of being fully compatible with existing device drivers, applications, and hardware. Presentations given by the company in 2008 have focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, most notably Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are no longer included with the operating system, they are instead offered separately as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite.
What does this mean to the general user? Well, probably the biggest fault in Vista was that it was released under the flag of “Vista Ready”. In the end, this wound up being a huge PR flop for Microsoft as many of the products being pushed weren’t ready or were ready with limited quality. Now Apple and the Linux world have both taken full advantage of this slip-up and have truly profited by it. So this could be a very big step, not only in terms of quality but market share. Ultimately though, MS has such stronghold on the market that it’s hard to imaging that there was any sort of a real dent made by either Apple or Linux. Will Apple and Linux take over? I don’t think so, not any time soon at least.
Review
When I heard that Windows 7 beta was “out in the wild”, I had to try it. Since I had no intentions of messing up my laptop with an install gone wrong, I created a new Virtual Machine (VM) to install it in. The “machine” I’ve installed it on has a 10GB “dynamic disk” (which starts small and grows as is needed), and is limited to 512MB of RAM. Apparently Win7 is supposed to run on Vista’s requirements, which state 512MB, a 1GHz processor, and 15GB HD for the Home basic version, and it seems to do pretty well.
A couple of other things I noticed: During the install, and even starting up normally, the VM experiences several “window resets”. I notice this because I run Compiz with the desktop cube plugin, and I normally have the VM loading on a side face of the cube, whenever it changes the “screen”, the window pops up on the active cube face. This happened several times during the install process (it even rebooted about halfway through, and finished the install from the files copied to the hard disk), and I believe it happens three times during bootup, though putting it into fullscreen mode keeps it from popping between cube faces.
Windows networking, for some reason or other, wouldn’t connect with \\vboxsvr (used for virtualbox shared folders). Audio does not work in the VM — I was unable to even “add new hardware” so as to install the driver form the Additions disc, as Windows insists on trying to auto-detect any new hardware. I especially like the new photo-realistic device icons, and the overhaul of the way Windows handles and ejects USB storage devices.
Overall and so far, it seems pretty nice, gives a signal that Microsoft has spent a lot of effort with Windows 7 on delivering a solid operating system.
Is Windows 7 enough to kill Linux on the desktop?
For the past three years I have been a Linux fan-boy using Ubuntu most of the time and Windows XP/Vista when I needed to play games. But my experience with Windows 7 was pretty good. If I am right Windows 7, would result in the move away from Voleware to Linux and OSX being stopped in in its tracks.
Personally, though, I am sticking to Linux.
Tags: Apple, Linux, Ubuntu, Virutalbox, Windows, Windows 7
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Set Twitter Tweet as status message in Pidgin!!! March 8th, 2009
While browsing the net you would have heard about Twitter. Twitter is basically another name for micro blogging. In twitter you just have to sign up, then update a single line(“what you are currently doing?”) whenever you can. Its just so simple, no fuss about making a profile or writing down about the movies you like and blah blah…
A lot of us also use different instant messaging clients on a day to day basis. Pidgin is one of these clients that runs on a number of platforms, including Windows, Linux, and other UNIX operating systems. The advantage of using pidgin is that instead of running GTalk, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger separately, you can have everything-in-one.
Now Pidigin allows us to set a status message and that is exactly what we do in twitter. So here’s what we can do.. update twitter status alone and then get Pidgin to retrieve and set the tweet as the IM status automatically.. This can be done with a help of a code found at Google Codes.
To do this follow the steps below. (I am taking it that you have already got Pidgin installed on your system.)
1. Firstly we need to install Perl. Most Linux distros come with Perl preinstalled. Windows users, download and install Perl from here.
2. Take a Command Prompt/Terminal and enter: perl -MCPAN -e shell (Linux users, would have to add a sudo before this). In the CPAN prompt that you got now, enter install XML::XPath and hit enter. This will download and install the Xpath module from Internet.
3. Now launch Pidgin. Go to Help -> About and scroll to the bottom of the page. You should see a line : Perl: Enabled.
4. Download twitter.pl from http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-twitterstatus/downloads/list and put it into your Pidgin plugins folder. Usually the plugins folder is C:\Program Files\pidgin\plugins for Windows users and ~/.purple/plugins for Linux users.
5. Now restart Pidgin and go to Tools -> Plugins. There will be a new plugin named Twitter Status Feed. Enable it and click on Configure Plugin. Enter your twitter user name in the dialog box that pops up.
6. Now in the drop down box where we select our status choose Twitter.
Note : sometimes in Linux copying the twitter.pl in “~/.purple/plugins” may not work. If you have root privilege then copy the script in “/usr/lib/purple-2/“.
Please leave comments if you face problems.
Tags: Linux, Perl, Pidgin, script, Softwares, twitter, Ubuntu, Windows
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