Tag: functionality

6 reasons Windows Vista is good for PC gaming

August 14, 2008 by Jason

1. 10. Without a doubt, Vista’s for 10 is the primary reason why in the environment will transcend ’ wildest dreams and far exceed the visual quality of even the and . “When come out, the end result will be a significant increase in visual fidelity,” said ’s Donahue.

This means a marked increase in the number of objects and/or characters on the screen at a time, as well as dramatic impact on the level of background detail trees, water, stars in outdoor and indoor environments. It also means, for example, that characters’ clothing and fur will flap in the wind. Based on the early screenshots released for such as , the impact of this new version of is quite clear even at a glance. (See the comparative scenes from Age of Conan: The Hyborian Adventures below.)

This increase in graphical quality is the result of a number of enhancements in 10 code, operations and resulting capabilities. As an example, a brand-new shader model (Version 4.0) in DX10 allows for more detailed and nuanced 3-D graphics. Read More»

Mozilla Introduces Firefox Snowl

August 08, 2008 by Jason

is designed to extend the of beyond the default tasks associated with the process of navigating content. In fact, this is the premise of , that the open source is capable of dealing with content in addition to what it was originally designed for. , a project from Labs, is described as nothing more than an “experiment with messaging in the ”.

“The initial prototype supports two sources of messages: RSS/ feeds and . And it exposes
two interfaces for reading them. First, a traditional three-pane ‘list’ view, targeted to active reading of important messages. Second, a ‘river of news’ view, based on the concept popularized by Dave Winer, designed for casual browsing,” revealed ’s Myk Melez.

The first version of is set up to mash together feeds but not much else. However, the project does have potential. Labs is currently considering extending in order to accommodate various sources of messages, but especially instant messaging services such as AIM or Talk. Read More»

Windows Search 4.0

July 19, 2008 by Jason

plans to debut serving 4.0 automatically to Vista by the end of July. With the final version up for grabs through the Center since the beginning of June 2008, the Redmond company is now wrapping up 4.0 for delivery through Update. However, only users with Vista with Update enabled will receive the update by default; XP users running either Service Pack 2 or will have to perform a manual upgrade.

XP users will see 4.0 available as an update, which means you must visit the Update site to install it. Vista users with SP1 installed will see the update as a Recommended update. This means that, if a Vista user has set their machine to automatically install updates, 4.0 will automatically install on PCs running Vista SP1. The release of 4.0 to Update will be gradual for these users,” revealed a member of the Update team. Read More»

At the Roots of Windows Blue Screen of Death

July 17, 2008 by Jason

Unfortunately for , one of the aspects of its proprietary that has grown to become associated by default with the brand is the Blue Screen of . BSOD, for short, is the result of a critical that will stop the dead in its tracks and lead to a .

In the NT corner of the universe, blue is by no means a welcomed color, and the BSOD even managed to span a cousin after the launch of Vista. The Black Screen of was used to refer to systems thrown into Reduced Mode, scenarios far less severe than a critical system crash, of course depending on perspective. Read More»

How To Select Multiple Areas Of Text for Firefox 3

June 21, 2008 by Jason

One big with 3 compared to previous versions, is with selecting areas of text on a page. In previous versions, if you wanted to select text areas, you needed to find an add-on or deal with the limited built in .

Now with 3, you can easily select discontinuous areas at once, select an entire paragraph, or select words.

Selecting Areas Of Text

With this new option you can make an initial selection as usual and keep adding text chunks by pressing the CTRL key ( key on Macs) while making additional selections.

Just highlight an area, then move your to another area of text that you want to select, press the CTRL key and drag the over the area of text.

After selecting the text areas, right click on an area and select copy (or press CTRL+C) and the text will be copied to the clip board where you can paste it in a text file, document, etc… Read More»

14 Things that Microsoft Needs to Do with Windows 7

June 14, 2008 by Jason

made no secret out of having, for some time now, been cooking the next iteration of , a translucent development process with very little transparent areas including details such as multi-touch, for 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, and the evolution of the Vista kernel, graphics and audio subsystems. Pieces of the 7 puzzle are indeed starting to come together, and a more consistent perspective will be delivered at the company’s 2008 Professional Developers Conference, that will take place between October 27 and 30 in Los Angeles.

Chairman Bill Gates and with Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, and Live Engineering Group, have made it clear that 7 will be the evolution of Vista. With the current acting as the foundation for the next, there have already been mentions of Vista SP2 or even Vista R2, but since actual details are gagged, all speculations about 7 are fair . In this context, Gates has also mentioned that 7 will be a product of ’s philosophy that states “do things better.” The Redmond company’s Co-Founder indicated that Vista has given ample opportunity for improvements with 7.

The intimate connection between 7 and Vista manages to raise questions as to just how much of the current client is going to survive into the next version, and just what sins it will pass along. Hopefully, has learned relevant lessons from Vista, and will not repeat the Wow mistakes. There are of course a few things that the Redmond company can do to ensure this. Read More»

Turn Your Terminal Into a Quake-like Console

May 05, 2008 by Jason

Nowadays everyone needs to have a little eye-candy on their desktop and, although most of the people that use the Terminal can easily be considered as being a little bit on the geek side and will always prefer over good looks, I’m pretty sure that none of them will refuse having a really nice looking and always ready Terminal at their disposal, just a key shortcut away.

And, by saying it will be just a key shortcut away, I don’t mean that you’ll be able to launch a Terminal each time you’ll push the magic button combination. No! The Terminal will just slide down over your ’s desktop and will hide again under the menubar when you will not need to use it anymore. Just like the console I mentioned in the title.

SIMBL and Visor

How can this be achieved, you ask? Well, it couldn’t be any simpler! All you will have to do is to install SIMBL, a plug-in and place it in the right location on your ’s hard-drive. Read More»

Windows Vista SP1 Wireless Feature Pack Available

April 21, 2008 by Jason

Updates and service packs do not serve as exclusive methods of adding to ’s . In this regard, feature packs are designed to enhance a platform with various components and features on top of the standard releases that are part of a product’s . Case in point: Vista Feature Pack for made available as of April 16. This is ’s way of delivering added to Vista on top of the recently released .

“This update includes the following components or features that improve in Vista: version 2.1 , Unified Pairing , Connect Now updates. Some of these features may work with existing . However, you must have new to take advantage of the new ,” revealed. Read More»

Vista SP1 Volume Activation Management Tool

March 29, 2008 by Jason

Vista, in the evolution from XP, delivered an overhauling of the activation infrastructure, and in this context introduced Volume Activation 2.0. the necessity of such a move as an attempt to cut down the primary source of activation workarounds for pirated copies of : leaked volume license . Volume Activation 2.0 is available not only in Vista, but also for the company’s latest server , Server 2008. And following the release of both Vista SP1 and Server 2008, has also made available the Volume Activation Tool 1.1 (x86). VAMT is set up to enable the automation and central handling of the volume activation process via a Activation Key (MAK). Read More»

New Vista update sniffs for pirated copies

March 01, 2008 by Jason

As it promised, Corp. yesterday started sending Vista users an update that identifies of the installed with cracks that the company will disable when it distributes (SP1) in two weeks. Last Thursday, announced the update, which detects two common cracks used to activate pirated copies of Vista, and said it would hit Update (WU) within a week. Users who have left Vista’s recommended WU settings alone will receive the update automatically. Others, said , must enable Update within Vista or manually call up WU from the .

A document posted to the company’s site spelled out the details. Among other things, it promised that the 3MB update “does not affect the of your .” Read More»