Lessfeet » Software

Windows 8 Preview

Mark — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 04:43:25 +0000

Windows 8 will be the latest Windows OS (operating system) when it is released, probably in September or October. For now we have the Consumer Preview to play with. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview seem like a release candidate to me. It is very polished, very fast and not buggy at all.

Windows 8 is an OS for desktops and laptops of course but it is also going to be used on tablets similar to the iPad. I do not have a Windows tablet to try it out on so this review is just about using it on a standard computer.

Fast

Windows 8 is very fast and will run on very slow hardware because it’s developed to run on very slow ARM processors (processors used in phones and tablets).

Metro

Windows 8 is mostly like Windows 7 except for a few changes. The first and most obvious is the new user interface (UI). When you login to Win8 for the first time what you will notice immediately is a dark blue background with a lot of rectangle and square icons called tiles. These tiles represent your applications. Don’t panic! This is the new start menu, not the desktop. Click the “Desktop Tile” and you will see the good old Windows desktop environment. To return to the start menu press the Windows Key.

Metro Apps

All of your programs and applications exist in the Metro start menu but some of these Tiles will display information without opening them. Most of these apps are cloud applications that pull information from the Internet. One of the apps that come with Windows 8 is the beautiful Bing Weather app. I also like the Mail app and Calender app. Mail and calender imports

It’s just getting going and the Windows 8 App Store only has an additional 66 apps in it. Soon I’m sure we will there will be apps from all of the big players, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Gowalla and many more.

The Cloud

Windows 8 has made a huge commitment to cloud computing. You have the option to login using your Live ID then you can seamlessly switch from Live apps to desktop apps. Most notable of these is Skydrive which was pretty much useless until now unless you use MS Office 10.

Ribbon

For few years there has been what is called the “Ribbon” at the top of MS Office. It replaces the old menu bar. Now they’ve brought the “Ribbon” to Windows Exploer.

Defender

You may remember the name Defender or Windows Defender. It was an anti-spyware program that Microsoft purchased. Now it is what they are calling Microsoft Security Essentials a really good anti-malware program that I’ve been using for years. Defender will come with Windows 8 so there is no need to buy and anti-virus.

Should I Upgrade?

The general rule is use the OS that comes on your computer and do not upgrade. That said if you have a computer that came with Windows 7 and you really want to upgrade Windows 8 will run fine on it, maybe better than 7.

Learn More About Windows 8

For a lot more information on Windows 8 see Windows Weekly 250.

Also See

Paul Thurrott’s Supersite For Windows

Free Video Editor

Mark — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 04:06:24 +0000

Yes there is a free video editor. Lightworks beta is not just free but it is full featured. It has been used on such films as the Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech and the critically acclaimed Hanna.

At the NAB Show in April 2010 EditShare owner of Lightworks announced they plan to transform Lightworks into Lightworks Open Source and in November 2010 released the a free downloadable version of that software.

The software is currently for Windows only but in late November 2011 will have both Mac and Linux versions. There is no reason to purchase expensive photo editing software like Adobe Premier or Final Cut.

Teamviewer

Mark — Sun, 29 May 2011 22:39:59 +0000

This weekend I tried Teamviewer a free remote access program. There are other remote access programs and some even work better than Teamviewer but the two best things about Teamviewer is it works cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux and many mobile devices) and Teamviewer is free. Like all remote access, controlling the remote computer is a little slow. Teamviewer works like a charm. I thought I had a problem connecting two Linux computers but I adjusted the screen resolution and it worked great. I’ve tried it on Windows 7, Windows XP, Linux Mint, and my Nexus One Android phone and they all worded great. I would say Teamviewer is an awesome free tool but it’s better than that. Teamviewer is an awesome tool!

Simpler Is Better

Mark — Fri, 13 May 2011 20:56:32 +0000

I’ve try the new Ubuntu 11.04 and I think it is an OK OS but for me and my purposes I am going to stick with Linux Mint 10. Linux Mint is like the Energizer bunny, it keeps goin and goin. Ubuntu 11.04 is terrific if you like a flashy user interface.I just need my OS to run my apps and always work, that why I’m sticking with mint. I’ve checked out the Mint 11 RC and when it’s released I will upgrade to 11. If they adopted the new Unity user interface I would have stuck with Linux Mint 10.

Ubuntu 11.04 First Impressions

Mark — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:43:42 +0000

Yesterday I downloaded Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal and I installed it on my desktop first. I did not have any time to play with it because I had to go to work. Today I installed it on my laptop. The install is very easy. You might say effortless. Once installed it is very fast. The new Unity interface is very intuitive. It is a great addition to a great operating system. Unity makes Ubuntu very Mac like in that the toolbar changes with the applications. Also the new launcher bar is very much like OS 10. Mac fans will like this a lot.

Unlike previous versions I had to manually install the Broadcom wireless driver instead of Ubuntu finding it for me. This was not a problem for me because I’ve been installing Linux on this laptop for five years but it might be a problem for a beginner.

I’ll know more about it later. The was only my first impressions. There will be more.

Firefox 4 vs Chrome

Mark — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 21:39:46 +0000

I’ve been using Firefox 4 for about a week and I have found it to be fast and reliable not unlike Google’s Chrome browser. What I’ve found is that the plugins for Firefox are much better. I’m not sure what the problem is but Google needs to work very hard with app developers to get quality plugins or FF4 is going to take back it’s market-share. There are some apps that are not rewritten for FF4 but developers always catch up.

Firefox now has browser-sync like Chrome but I think it’s more secure than Chrome’s. The “App Tab’s” feature is a great also. Features

There is a lot to like about Firefox 4.

The Winner Mint 10

Mark — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 06:32:30 +0000

I’ve been using Linux Mint 10 on my laptop for a while now and found it to be completely reliable. I’ve been using some form of Linux on it for about 4 years. I have now installed Mint 10 on my desktop. I don’t find Windows reliable. There is always some issue. Lately there is always some process hogging the CPU, RAM or Internet bandwidth. I never have this sort of problem with Linux. Linux Mint 10 is so easy to install and use. It will be my primary OS. I still use PhotoShop and Lightroom on Windows and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Also I have to support Windows users which requires me to use GoToAssist for Windows and GoToMeeting for Window so I have made my desktop a dual boot system with Windows 7 and Linux Mint 10.

LibreOffice

Mark — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 07:01:06 +0000

LibreOffice is a new free office suite that is much like OpenOffice because it is from the same code-base as OpenOffice 3.3. LibreOffice was started after fears of the possible sale of Sun Microsystems to Oracle Corperation. Sun being the sponsor of OpenOffice. OpenOffice is still available but who knows for how long.

Get LibreOffice!

Diggin On Some Firefox 4

Mark — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 07:31:11 +0000

A few weeks ago I told you I loved the Google Chrome browser. I’ve been testing the Firefox 4 Beta and I’m really happy with it. It’s clean, fast and packed with some great features.

I know a few weeks ago I was all hyped up about Chrome and you think this is just a faze. There are a lot of great things to say about Chrome but the extensions are are to buggy. Google should really help developers build them better. The Firefox extensions almost always work great. I’m sorry this is such a showstopper for me. I’ve been dependent on the extensions for quite some time.

Firefox 4 isn’t even out of Beta and I’m already hooded. They’ve stolen some of the best features of Chrome and added them to the great pluggin platform to create a great browser.

Ninite

Mark — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 13:30:22 +0000

In the previous post “Tips For A New PC” the Tekzilla boys mentioned “Ninite” a web application that collects all of your favorite free software and roles it up in a nice executable package so you can install all of those apps at once in a single install. You go to the “Ninite” website you check all of the programs you want to install like Firefox, Skype, K-Lite CODECs and many more. You click “Get Installer”. It then downloads an executable file that will automatically install all the apps that you selected. How cool is that?