The blog of Rob Margel

Speed up your PC and get a Windows Experience Index score of 5.9

The ever wonderful Windows Vista Magazine has been running a recent set of articles on how to achieve a Windows Experience score of 5.9

The articles are great and well worth a read if you are looking to make sure your computers hardware and software is going to be capable of giving you the ultimate experience

Part 1: Focuses on memory and RAM

Part 2: Focuses on processing power

Part 3: Focuses on boosting your graphics

Part 4: Looks at increasing your hard disk speed

My nearly 2 year old Toshiba Tecra M7 comes in at a paltry 3.0, mainly due the graphics capability.  If these where improved I could be up in the high 4s as the rest of the hardware is not to shabby.

Rob

OT – Windows Cling Pictures confusion

Ok so it is Monday morning, but I get loads of email over the weekend from all over the world, and my usual work pattern is to give the titles a quick scan and delete the majority!!! and then start to look at the ones that appear more important that are left.

This morning I had an email from Amazon.co.uk telling me that a new product was available called ‘Windows Cling Pictures’.  Thinking that this was maybe a new product around pictures or images in Windows, or a new book that I might be interested in, I right-clicked to download the pictures to find out  that no it wasn’t anything to do with Microsoft Windows but rather a product from Crayola for painting physical glass windows.

It made me smile for my faux-pas…

But it looks like it is going to be a long week ahead for me, and I am heading down to Starbucks for an extra shot Americano to get my brain in gear

Hopefully the next set of postings will be more on topic.

Rob

New image tool from Microsoft Research: AutoCollage

You might have already seen a little about the this great new piece of software coming from Microsoft Research , it lets you create collages of pictures automatically from your computer.  So I thought I would give it a quick go, and the result are below.

This collage of pictures was from a Heli-Hike trip we took on the Franz  Josef glacier in New Zealand, way back in 2001.  As you can see from the picture we had a truly great day, and it was one of the best experiences of our life's.

It was so simple to use the tool and am now on the look out for more images to have a play with :)

You can see a demo of the program in action, or get a 30 day trial free, or buy from the Microsoft Uk Store (covering all EU countries)for £19.90

Microsoft Research AutoCollage ‘Pick a folder, press a button, and in a few minutes AutoCollage presents you with a unique memento to print or email to your family and friends. ‘

Rob

Windows Live Messenger translation bot!

How great is this latest Bot, from the MSR-MT team Windows Live Messenger translation bot now available!

Really easy to use and setup in a few seconds on Windows Live Messenger, and on your smartphone.

To get started just add mtbot@hotmail.com to your contacts, then start a conversation with TBOT ? to get a list of commands, and then for example enter 7 (for English to Italian translation), then type your message and you get a machine translated response such as

‘quanto freddo è il Bot in tensione di traduzione del messaggero delle finestre’

Update – just also added this to my Office Communicator and of course it works fine there too.

Rob

Norfolk Panoramas

Last week I was away on holiday in North Norfolk which is a very beautiful part of the British Isles and whilst visiting various sandy and stoney beaches I managed to shoot a number of panorama shots of Cley Windmill at dusk:

and

Both where shot with my trusty old Sony DSC V1 camera in auto mode, and both feature Sarah and Felix on the right hand side. Click on the images to get  a bigger image, and of you want a copy of the originals (2Mb) then let me know:)

If you are wondering how I created these by auto stitching 4 images together look at this and then download Windows Live Photo Gallery for free

Rob

Ps I am still on holiday for another week but will try and get some more panoramas :)

Engineering Windows 7 Blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/e7)

Well it should be live today at http://blogs.msdn.com/e7

I actually work in the Windows product group, as the Windows International Site Manager for the UK in a sub group called Windows International Online  phew that was a bit of a mouthful.  Although I do not work directly on Windows 7 it is an exciting time to be in the Windows product group, with all the interest in this major next release of Windows.

The blog is going to be about the story behind the engineering/making of Windows 7, told by the members of the development team.

Hopefully it will be great blog with some interesting posts and discussions.

The first, welcome blog posting is up http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/08/14/welcome.aspx

“The audience of enthusiasts, bloggers, and those that are the most passionate about Windows represent the folks we are dedicating this blog to. With this blog we’re opening up a two-way discussion about how we are making Windows 7. Windows has all the challenges of every large scale software project—picking features, designing them, developing them, and delivering them with high quality. Windows has an added challenge of doing so for an extraordinarily diverse set of customers. As a team and as individuals on the team we continue to be humbled by this responsibility."

Rob

Windows Vista top 10 tips and tricks

I am always on the hunt for great content for Windows Vista and just stumbled upon this download (xps, pdf versions) and you can read all the detail there...

1. Overall security: Windows Security Center...
2. Windows Defender: Scan on Execute...
3. Bitlocker: Disk encryption
4. Automated Backup: Windows Backup and Restore Center
5. Instant Search: Looking for specific applications, Web sites and emails...
6. Integrated Search: Save Search
7. Aero: Premium user experience
8. Mobility: Be productive on the go
9. Meeting Space: face to face collaborations
10. XPS: new archiving format

well if you read the document you get 2 bonus tips and tricks making it 12 really: 11. Share a folder or file directly from your PC and 12. PC performance.

XPS link = http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/9/B/D9B9587E-427C-439F-B90C-69A1E643DE4C/windows_vista_tips_and_tricks.xps

PDF link = http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/9/B/D9B9587E-427C-439F-B90C-69A1E643DE4C/windows_vista_tips_and_tricks.pdf

Rob :)

updated with correct xps link :)

Test drive Windows Vista Ultimate for free

interested? then you can check it out at Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 Test Drive

Rob

Let the games begin! Use Windows Sidebar to start counting medals now!

We all love gadgets don't we? such as the weather on Mars gadget well whilst the Olympics are on you may want to check out Medal Counter.

There are many other great gadgets on the Windows Live Gallery so go and have a play :)

You can find our more about the Windows Sidebar gadgets at the following links:

• Windows Sidebar and gadgets
• Customise the Windows Sidebar
• Demo: What's new with the Windows desktop and Start menu?

Rob

Microsoft Environment: turn your compute off and Edison Pc Power ManCgement software

A while back I blogged about the Microsoft Environment blog since then I have been keeping up to date with what is going on and it has been going from strength to strength and wanted to point out some more excellent resources which you might not have yet come across:

Sustainable Computing Sleep or Hibernate? "Part of living a more sustainable life means taking actions, such as recycling, using reusable bags at the grocery store, and turning off the lights when you leave a room. Just as leaving the lights on in an empty room is a waste of energy, leaving your computer on when it's not in use also wastes energy." (my bolding)

Download Edison 'a free energy-monitoring application for eco-conscious consumers. You can use it to more actively control your PC’s energy consumption — and subsequently your household’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. ' More information available from Verdiem at http://www.verdiem.com/edison/

Rob

Why Vista ? From the blog at the end of the universe

Dan over on the Blog at the end of the universe is doing a great series of Why Vista? articles on his blog, the latest is about backing up your Pc using CompletePC Backup:

1. UAC (user Account Control)
2. Windows Meeting Space
3. Volume Mixer
4. Snipping Tool
5. Preview Pane

I am looking forward to Volume 7

The Blog at the End of the Universe

Rob :)

Latest Windows Vista Demos: Super-fast searching and watching movies and tv on your PC.

First up is Super-fast searching in Windows Vista -  Watch this demo to learn how to find files quickly using the search tools in the Windows Vista Start menu, Control panel, and folders.

And Secondly - Tune in to movies and TV shows on the web - Watch this demo to learn how to use your computer to watch entire TV shows and movies over the Internet. Websites and services mentioned in the demo include Netflix, Joost, Hulu, and NBC.  This demo is very very US centric and demos US only services.

Rob

New Windows Vista How-to centers

We have just launched some new help and how to centers on the UK Windows help and how-to  web site

there are 4 in total:

1. Mobile PC

2. Windows Live

3. Windows Media Center

4. Windows Media Player 11

The idea of these pages are really a central place to find all the best content for each of the featured areas in place inlcuding tips and tricks, great articles, help and support and more…

Secondly to help provide a more local feel to the web site by sign posting specific UK services or additions that are different to the US.  Such as the highlighting of Multimap on the Windows Live pages.

let me know what you think, anything missing or you would like to see.

Rob

Eight ways to save time with Windows Vista

8 super quick tips on how to save time whilst using Windows Vista from the ever useful Windows Vista Magazine

Windows Vista Magazine | Eight ways to save time with Windows Vista

1. Send an email straight from your desktop
2. Quickly check your network connection status from your desktop
3. Create shortcuts to your favourite web sites
4. Get all your breaking news in one place with RSS feeds
5. Use Start Search
6. Get the App launcher sidebar gadget
7. Install Launchy
8. Use Task Scheduler to automate tasks

thanks guys :)

Rob

Windows Vista® Performance and Tuning

Download this latest guide to improve performance of Windows Vista ‘quickly and easily’

Download details: Windows Vista® Performance and Tuning

including topics related to Windows Search, power management and more...

‘This guide focuses on performance improvements on a single computer, but also takes a look at some of the tools used in enterprise environments to help make performance tuning manageable on a much larger scale’