October, 2008

Shamelessly copied from  The WinVista Club here is a great list of all the Shortcut keys in Windows Vista

WinKey - Open and close the Start Menu

WinKey + D - Minimize all windows to the desktop. Press again to reverse action

WinKey + E - Open Computer in Windows Explorer

WinKey + L - Lock the computer

WinKey + F - Open the Search window to find files and folders

WinKey + M - Minimise all windows

WinKey + Shift + M - Maximise all windows after minimizing them

WinKey + R - Open the Run dialog box

WinKey + X - Open Windows Mobility Center

WinKey + E  - Open Windows Explorer

WinKey + Tab  - Activates Flip 3D. Use mouse wheel to cycle windows

WinKey + U  - Open Ease Of Access Center

WinKey + Pause  - Opens the Systems Properties dialog box

WinKey + F1  - Opens Windows Help & Support

WinKey + B - Sets focus on the Task bar, Allows navigation using arrow keys; opens applications on pressing Enter key.

Updated 24 Sept 2008

Winkey + Space – shows all the sidebar and desktop gadgets

Updated 01 Oct 2008 - found this by mistake!

Winkey + S – Create a screen clipping and send to Microsoft OneNote

Updated 15 Jan 2009

For the full list try this Windows Help and how-to article Keyboard shortcuts

Rob

If you like your Windows Vista in Armenian, then you can download the latest Windows Vista Language Interface Pack (LIP) now:

Click here to download the Armenian Vista LIP.

Rob

Celebrating the 300th anniversary of St Paul’s Cathedral, it is really worth checking out over on msn.co.uk  http://news.uk.msn.com/st-pauls-cathedral-photo-tour.aspx

Learn more about Photosynth and St Paul's Cathedral

Rob

Nice little touch from Live search in India , if you enter in any cricket related search term such as India Test match cricket score you get a great result showing the latest match score (seems very up to date within an hour at least) and links to schedules and scorecards..

Kudos to WinVistaClub for the spot.

Rob

  I have always been fascinated by speed and the land speed records in particular, the cars, the men that attempted them and the stories around them. 

Men like Sir Donald Campbell, Henry Segrave, John Cobb etc. are true heroes.

So I spotted this with great interest on last nights news at 10

‘If all goes to plan, Bloodhound SSC will break the land speed record by the largest ever margin, and, in 40 seconds of breathtaking thrust, inspire thousands of British school children to take science A levels’

Britain's Bloodhound car could reach 1,000mph - Times Online

Wikipedia has a full list of the Land Speed Record holders as you would expect

Rob

So you might have thought Facebook and Myspace rule the world , well maybe not…

http://www.oxyweb.co.uk/blog/socialnetworks-oct08.png

‘The data shows the highest ranking social network for each country by traffic, not members, page views or any other method

Data was taken from alexa.com on 16th Oct 2008

Alexa data comes from users who have the Alexa toolbar as well as “data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources” – Alexa.com

Countries in grey do not have data available and for a few countries it was difficult to identify local social networks and therefore were omitted from the map.

It’s not perfect so let me know of any errors or suggestions www.oxyweb.co.uk/blog’

Rob

Mary J Foley took time out from a promotional book tour to spend 1 hour at the Microsoft TVP Campus to answer questions from Microsofties and journalists.  It was a great informal discussion and we got to hear from Mary J Foley on topics ranging from Windows Vista perceptions to Ray Ozzie and from Virtualization to the Mojave Experiment. 

Thanks To Eileen Brown for organising the session.

Below is my annotated notes and interesting snippets I took out of the session (slight disclaimer: I have abridged the questions and answers based on not taking verbatim notes or being able to read my own writing)

• Following the DOJ trial would it have been better if Microsoft was split up? –> Yes mainly because it would have made the companies far more agile.
• On The Vista Perception problems… –> Microsoft cannot get a break no matter what it does with Vista, Microsoft messed up & apologised but still cannot fix the perception problem so get Windows 7 out.
• On Apple –>  They get away with so much that if Microsoft did the same it would be very heavily criticised.
• On the New ad campaign –>  Like the I’m a PC part which is clear and good to instil pride back.  Hated the Gates & Seinfeld ads.
• On what it will take Windows 7 to be a success –> Be more transparent on what will be in Windows 7 (maybe more at PDC), be upfront about the fact that decisions about what features are in have already been made.  Suggestions now are likely to be in Windows 8 or 9 if at all.
• On the Windows Product team –>  The Windows Team doesn’t like me!!! (well not all of us Mary J)
• On the Mojave Experiment –> liked the idea
• Who are the groups or persons out there that are being very focused on Microsoft and criticising the company whether correctly or not –> Competitors, enthusiasts who prefer other platforms and especially Linux users.
• On reading your own blog comments –>  only do it when you are in a good mood and never when you have had a drink
• On Ray Ozzie –>  Needs to be more visible as this lack of visibility is a big problem/issue.
• On Enterprise Vs Consumer at Microsoft –> with the focus a lot on the consumer there is a danger Microsoft could drop its focus and attention on its less sexy projects
• On Journalism Vs Blogging where is the line –> Journalism should be unbiased where as blogging is all about having an opinion
• On UK Microsoft Bloggers –> quite refreshing change from some of the corporate blogs as there are more opinions and less press release type bloggers.
• On Google and Microsoft –> Is it serious about areas such as Google Docs  and apps besides some students and small business who else is using it.  Plus also with the recent downtime if that had been Microsoft we would have been panned but Goggle gets away with it. But people love Google because amongst other things they want credible competition and someone to challenge Microsoft and stop us from winning every time.  (PS she is still using Google Chrome apparently!!)
• On Microsoft bloggers in general –> they have helped a lot to change the perception of the company and it is good to be able to get to a person directly.
• On Virtualisation –>  Microsoft making great progress, quoted an IDC report about 25% market, but there is a formidable player in VMWare and especially Paul Maritz who she praised highly

Rob

We all love our sidebar gadgets? Techradar.com has  a list of the 22 Vista Sidebar gadgets to save you time including gadgets from National Rail, Ebay, Wikipedia etc

22 Vista Sidebar gadgets to save you time

Any others you can recommend?

Rob

Just catching up on some reading and cam across this interview with Steve Wozniak on the BBC’s web site

Woz's words of wisdom

Well worth a read, and there a few nice quotes such as:

"Lack of resources forces you to do a lot more original thinking."  I wonder out loud if there was a little less resource in Microsoft what would we do differently, better or not at all!

Update 7th Oct 2008  and an even better article in the Telegraph

Steve Wozniak interview: iconic co-founder on the iPod, iPhone, and future for Apple

‘Consumers aren't getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down," he says when comparing the iPhone's closed operating system to the new Google phone's open source system which allows anyone to modify and adapt the way the phone works. "I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you're allowed," he laments.’

Rob

The project that has been keeping me very busy recently has been the launch of the Windows site in the UK  which we rolled out in conjunction with the UK version of I’m a PC campaign, which you will have spotted if you watch the X Factor on Saturday.

So you will notice our new homepage http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/

as well as a totally redesign web site of all the Windows content such as our Windows Vista pages, to be in line with the corporate Windows site I blogged about a while back

Over the next few days I plan to share and highlight some of the new content and features, but for now if you want to see relive the UK  advert watch the video below:

as always love to hear any comments or feedback you have on the new design, or any problems you may have found.

Rob