Tag: Software
According to Google, Internet Explorer 8 comes in last place out of the world’s most popular five browsers in the race for JavaScript conformance. Christian Plesner Hansen, Google software engineer, is basing this conclusion on the results that IE8, Firefox 3.6, Opera 10.50, Chrome 4 and Safari 4 got in the company’s Sputnik JavaScript conformance test suite, a collection of over 5,000 tests designed to assess the level of conformance with the 3rd edition of the ECMA-262 specification.
On the left “is an experimental plot that compares five popular browsers and which we hope to update as new stable versions of the browsers are released. We created this chart by running Sputnik in each of the five browsers and then plotting each browser such that the fewer tests a browser fails the closer it is to the center and the more failing tests two browsers have in common the closer they are placed to each other.
In this example, when running Sputnik on a Windows machine, we saw the following results: Opera 10.50: 78 failures, Safari 4: 159 failures, Chrome 4: 218 failures, Firefox 3.6: 259 failures and Internet Explorer 8: 463 failures,” Hansen stated. Read More»
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According to Microsoft, a total of two computers are more than sufficient to qualify a customer for Volume Licensing, Software Assurance and the adjacent benefits. Eric Ligman, Global Partner Experience lead Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, revealed that, despite the common belief for some that a minimum of five PCs was necessary for Volume Licensing, the fact of the matter was that two machines were more than enough.
The misconception comes from the fact that Microsoft sets a minimum number of five licenses that need to be purchased by business customers as a part of their Volume Licensing agreement. However, the Redmond company doesn’t specify in what manner users will deploy the software they licensed.
“Both the Open License and Open Value licensing programs require a minimum order of five (5); however, it is not 5 computers, it is 5 Licenses (for Open License) or 5 Licenses+Software Assurance or Software Assurance alone (for Open Value),” Ligman stated, offering “an example of how a two computer company could easily qualify for Open License.” According to Ligman, a customer could install Windows and Office on a PC and Windows and Office plus Streets and Trips on a second machine in order to qualify for a Volume License agreement. Read More»
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When it comes to user management in windows, either it is for a domain administrator or local system administrator, they might feel helpless with the default user management interface, as it does not provide options for all user accounts to list their status, enable or disable them in easy way.
Chilly User Management is a free to use utility which allows managing user accounts within the Domain. Apart from managing and providing information about local user accounts, the software also allows the administrator to reset the local user password and enable or disable account status.
This freeware supports administrator in taking complete control of the local useraccounts of their domain users.
As shown in the application snapshot above, you can easily change the username or password for any user on any PC on your network with this utility. It is a enterprise levelsoftware for Active Directory that eliminates the need to manage user accounts locally. Read More»
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Are you always thinking that people might get their hands on your data and you do everything you can to make sure it is always safe and you are the only one that has access to it? If that description applies to you, then you have to know that Apple has a really neat trick in store for you.
If you want to prevent others from booting your machine and getting access to your data, you can use the firmware password protection features to easily set up a low-level password protection for your Mac.
The firmware password protection feature is off by default on all Mac machines and, according to Apple, the Open Firmware Password tool should be used only on Macs with Mac OS X 10.1 and later. Because Apple does not provide technical support or endorse using the Open Firmware Password Protection feature on earlier versions of Mac OS or with any third-party software utilities, you should be careful and first make sure that your Mac complies with this basic requirement.
On Intel and PPC based Macs, the firmware password protection is based on two different types of firmware: the Intel-based computers use the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) technology and the PowerPC processor-based machines use Open Firmware. Read More»
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According to Microsoft, there are no less than two main categories of functionality when it comes down to integration with the next version of the Office System. Instant messaging (IM) applications can hook into Office 2010 only at a basic level, or go deeper and deliver presence integration. Microsoft has made available for download a document which outlines “Presence Integration between IM Applications and Microsoft Office 2010.” The resource is offered for free via the Microsoft Download Center, along with another document titled: Office Communicator 2007: Presence Integration Between IM Applications and 2007 Microsoft Office System.
“With basic IM and Presence integration, a third party can use IM applications to leverage Presence and integrate IM functionality in Office applications within the following: Outlook 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Word 2010, Microsoft Excel 2010 and Microsoft Powerpoint 2010,” the company explained.
Of course, at the same time, third-party developers can go deeper than just basic IM and Presence Integration. In this regard, instant messaging applications can integrate with Office 2010 components for search, contacts and even conferencing features. Read More»
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While there is more than enough room to grow by simply eroding Internet Explorer’s share on the browser market, the growth of a specific player impacts the others as well. Case in point: Google Chrome’s increase in usage share in January and February 2010. Chrome is managing to hurt not only Microsoft’s IE but also Mozilla’s Firefox. According to statistics from Net Applications, Google Chrome was the only major browser to gain market share in January 2010.
“The Google Chrome browser gained .4% of global usage share in January. All other major browsers showed a month-to-month decline,” the Internet metrics company stated. This is, of course, nothing new for Internet Explorer, as Microsoft has been continuously seeing its browser market share erode. However, it is news for Mozilla, which has become used to a steady pace of growth, especially in the detriment of IE.
What’s even more interesting is that the first two months of 2010 could very well end up being the beginning of a new trend. At the start of the past month, Net Applications revealed that “the Google Chrome browser gained .6% of global usage share in January. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer dropped share during the last month.” Read More»
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February 25, 2010 by
Jason A computer on which Windows 7 has been deployed via a clean install can stop responding completely after the second restart. This issue also affects Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft informed, and is related to the 1394 bus driver.
According to the Redmond company, machines running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 can also stop responding when customers enable or install a 1394 device. The IEEE 1394 is a serial bus interface standard most known by the following brands FireWire (Apple), i.LINK (Sony), and Lynx (Texas Instruments).
Microsoft even offered an example of the hardware configuration on which users have been experiencing this problem. The software giant notes that the issue affects PCs with nVidia MCP7A-GeForce 9300 rev B1 motherboard that also feature an LSI Logic FW533 or an FW643 1394 Host controller. Disabling and then enabling, as well as uninstalling and then installing the 1394 host controller will render the machine unresponsive, as will restarting the computer, or putting it to sleep and then waking it.
“This issue occurs because the 1394 bus driver in Windows 7 does not issue an Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) Soft Reset command to the 1394 host controller when the computer enters a low power (D3) state. When the 1394 host controller later enters a high power (D0) state, it may generate an incorrect PCI-Express packet. In this situation, the motherboard chipset stops responding,” Microsoft explained.
Ahead of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the 1394 bus driver in Windows platforms generated an Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) Soft Reset command to the 1394 host controller concomitantly with the moment when the PC was entering a low power state. Microsoft doesn’t offer users an update to fix the issue.
However, the company does have a hotfix available for download via Microsoft Support. “If the 1394 host controller is an add-on card, remove the card from the system before you install Windows 7. After setup is complete, apply this hotfix, and then re-enable the 1394 host controller,” the company advised affected users.
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February 22, 2010 by
Jason Microsoft is expanding the language support for the latest iterations of its main cash cows, Windows 7 and Office 2010. Specifically, no less than 59 new Language Interface Packs (LIPs) will be made available. The new LIPs are designed to integrate with both Office 2010 and Windows 7. In addition, the Redmond company will also be providing four new LIP additions for the next generation of its development platform, Visual Studio 2010.
“Allowing for people to use and build software in their native language helps emerging markets build a stronger work force, and ultimately better prepares employees to help grow their local economies,” said Lauren Woodman, senior director of Microsoft’s Government and Education Engagement Programs. Before the new 59 LIPs for Windows 7 and Office 2010 and the new four LIPs for Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft’s offerings included no less than 178 downloads in 67 different languages which already were covered by LIPs and CLIPs for earlier versions of Windows, Office and Visual Studio.
In addition to announcing the new LIPs for Windows 7, Microsoft will also be providing customers with new Caption Language Interface Packs. Customers will be able to leverage a CLIP as a tool tip, the software giant revealed. CLIPS will make it possible for the software’s interface to show terms in a specified language, but also keep the base language in place, whether it is a LIP or a fully localized version. Read More»
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February 20, 2010 by
Jason The first service pack for Windows 7 might include a fix for a problem related to the new Natural User Interface of the operating system.
Microsoft has detailed an issue affecting Windows 7 Home Premium, Ultimate and Professional running on touch-capable computers, which involves frozen speed settings for the double tap gesture.
“Consider the following scenario: open up the “Control Panel;” browse to “Hardware and Sound” -> “Pen and Touch” -> “Touch” tab; under “Touch Actions”, select “Double-tap” and click “Settings…” Change the Speed setting slider from “Fast” to “Slow” or from “Slow” to “Fast”. After you change the speed setting, double tap at different rates and you will notice no difference between fast and slow speed setting,” Microsoft stated.
Windows 7 comes with multi-touch support by default, although the feature is limited to computers that have the necessary hardware to allow customers to use the operating system’s NUI. Double tap is a gesture equivalent to the double click performed with the mouse.
In this regard, Windows 7 should allow end users to change the speed of the double tap just as it does for double click. According to Microsoft, this is not the case. Read More»
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February 08, 2010 by
Jason
Microsoft has made available for download new resources associated with the underlining graphics technology in its Windows operating system, including the latest version of the operating system. Windows 7 brought to the table DirectX 11, a technology which was also backported to Windows Vista SP2 via the Platform Update for Windows Vista. No less than three downloads were made available at the end of the past week by the Redmond company: the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer, the DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2010), and DirectX Software Development Kit.
All three DirectX resources have been updated for the first time in 2010. “The Microsoft DirectX End-User Runtime provides updates to 9.0c and previous versions of DirectX — the core Windows technology that drives high-speed multimedia and games on the PC,” Microsoft stated. DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2010) is “the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. This package is localized into Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Swedish, and English,” the company added.
The core of the DirectX February 2010 update is without a doubt the software development kit Microsoft is offering developers to streamline the building of DirectX compliant applications. The SDK package contains tools, utilities, samples, documentation, as well as the runtime debug files for 64-bit (x64) and (32-bit) x86 Windows. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows 7 | No Comments »
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