By Rick Broida
November 25, 2009

Now that I’ve finally finished migrating to Windows 7, I’m enjoying it. This week I’ll talk about three new features that I find really useful: Aero Snap, Sticky Notes, and thumbnail previews–and I’ll tell you how to get the most from them.

Use Aero Snap to Simplify File Management
In my early computing days (I’m talking Commodore Amiga here), I grew accustomed to file managers that used a side-by-side approach: Your complete file system was represented in two adjoining windows. That made it very easy to move or copy files and folders.

Consequently, I’ve never liked Windows Explorer, which uses a single file-tree structure. To me that complicates something as simple as moving a file from one folder to another. It’s not intuitive.

If you’re a Windows 7 user, you can take advantage of two new additions to make file management much easier: addition #1: Windows Explorer’s new home on the taskbar; addition #2: Aero Snap.

See where I’m going with this? All you have to do is open two instances of Explorer, then drag one to the left edge of the screen and the other to the right. Aero Snap will “dock” them on the left and right halves of the screen, respectively.

Now you’ve got a side-by-side file manager! By the way, if you’re not sure how to open that second instance of Explorer, right-click its icon in the taskbar, then click Windows Explorer.

Create Sticky Notes in Windows 7
Forget pasting paper sticky notes to the sides of your monitor. They look terrible there, and they always fall off anyway. Instead, paste digital stickies to your Windows desktop. If you’re a Windows 7 user, it’s a snap: Just run the new Sticky Notes app.

You might recognize it from the ol’ Vista Sidebar. In Windows 7, Microsoft ditched the Sidebar but kept the gadgets, allowing the latter to reside anywhere on your desktop.

To run the app, just click Start, type sticky, and press Enter. You’ll immediately see a new note; just start typing whatever it is you need to remember.

Need another note? Click the plus sign on the first one. Want to delete it? Click the x in the opposite corner. Prefer a different color. Right-click in the body of the note and choose from six options.

Remember that Sticky Notes is an app, so your notes will stay on your desktop only as long as the app is running. If you close it (by right-clicking the taskbar icon and choosing Close window), Sticky Notes will restore your notes the next time you run it.

This is a decidedly barebones program. You can’t change the font size, adjust transparency, or force notes to stay on top of other programs. If you want that kind of functionality, try Stickies for Windows.

Still, Sticky Notes can really come in handy when you need, well, a note that sticks to your desktop.

Control iTunes from the Windows 7 Taskbar
One of my favorite Windows 7 amenities is thumbnail previews, which appear when you mouse over any running program in the taskbar.

In fact, each thumbnail has a little red x in the upper-right corner, meaning you can close that program without first having to maximize it.

Apple’s iTunes takes this a step further by adding player controls. The thumbnail sports three little icons: Previous Track, Play/Pause, and Next Track.

These buttons work just like the controls in iTunes proper, but they save you from having to actually switch to the program whenever you want to, say, skip to the next song or temporarily pause playback.

Of course, savvy users know that you can add an entire iTunes toolbar to the taskbar in both Windows 7 and Vista, but that just adds clutter. Here you get basic playback controls without consuming extra space. Nice!

By Mike Keller
November 22, 2009

Early last week, Apple released the 10.6.2 update to Snow Leopard loaded mostly with welcome, but unsurprising bug fixes, including a patch for the uncommon but extremely harmful user account deletion bug. However, hidden in the kernel update was dropped support for the hackintosh-friendly Intel Atom processor. The Atom is Intel‘s smallest chip and has the distinction of being the processor of choice for people building cheap OS X netbooks with limited hackery required. When early builds of 10.6.2 removed Atom support, speculation and rumors were abound regarding the future of the easy-to-build Atom hackintosh.

Just two days after the 10.6.2 update was released to the dismay of OS X Atom users, a Russian poster of the InsanelyMac forums released a fix that once again allows the chip to be used. The fix actually comes in the form of an entire kernel replacement, reminiscent of the early days of Intel hackintosh. It may sound daunting, but installation is actually a snap, requiring no more than six commands to be typed in the Terminal. Still, it adds a somewhat convoluted step in the once extremely straight-forward process of building an Atom OS X box.

Between Psystar, the recent iPhone 3GS firmware jailbreak block, and now this, Apple sure has been spending a lot of effort to keep their software on lockdown.

By Ian Paul
November 19, 2009

Google will finally take the wrapper off its highly-anticipated Chrome operating system during a presentation at Google HQ on Thursday. The event will include a complete overview of the product featuring a Chrome OS demonstration and Q&A session. Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management and Matthew Papakipos, Google engineering director for Google Chrome OS, will speak at the event, according to TechCrunch.

Thursday’s presentation will provide at least some answers to the many questions gone unanswered since Google announced the project in July. I have no doubt Google’s event will inspire more questions than it answers, but at least it’s a start. Here’s what we’re likely to find out:

How Long Until Liftoff?
Part of Google’s presentation on Thursday should include more information about when the OS will be available to consumers. It’s possible Google will remain silent, and stick to its “second half of 2010″ statement that we got earlier this year. But I’m hoping the company will be able to narrow it down to a particular month or at least a season.

What the Heck is Google Chrome OS?
Despite hyperbolic statements that Google dropped a nuclear bomb on Microsoft with its Chrome OS announcement, the fact is no one really knows what this system can do. Questions about Google Chrome OS’s capabilities should disappear on Thursday. We should also find out whether Chrome OS is just another Linux distribution or something entirely new.

Where Do Developers Fit in?
Part of Google’s promise when it announced Chrome OS is that it would make the operating system’s code open source by the end of the year. If Google makes good on its promise tomorrow, where will developers fit into Google’s ecosystem?

Google is making strides to involve developers in creating Google Chrome extensions and Google Wave applications. But an operating system that will supposedly change everything should present new opportunities for developers. What will those be? Is Google hoping its developer community will simply help the company improve the OS, or does Google have a more interesting plan in the works?

What’s Up With the Hardware?
When Google starts the Chrome OS demo on Thursday, everyone will want to know what kind of computer is running the OS, and when we can expect to see consumer products on store shelves.

We already know that some of Google’s Chrome OS partners include Acer, ASUS, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Toshiba, but when will we see some merchandise and what will it be? Google said Chrome OS will be available on netbooks to start, but what about the specs? For instance, does Google believe a Web-centric netbook should come with a lot of storage space? Does it even need a hard drive? What about RAM or optical disc drives?

Wave and Microsoft
I’m also interested to see if Google highlights Chrome OS’s integration with Google Wave. As anybody who’s on Wave can tell you, Google Wave is the coolest spot on the Web, but there’s not much to do right now. How important is this revamped e-mail project to Google, and how will Chrome OS complement it?

We should also get a sense of how Chrome OS might fare against Windows. Who knows — Microsoft may even issue a statement about it. Let’s be honest; it’s laughable to think the most dominant operating system since the human brain is going to be upended by a fancy Web browser. But hey, you never know.

Chrome OS Doubts
Although a lot of excitement surrounds Chrome OS, I can’t help thinking the importance of this product is already overblown. I mean, if you wanted a lightweight operating system that just gets to the Web faster, why not pick up a copy of Linux, and just run Firefox on it? If you want one-click shortcuts to get to specific Web apps you can use Mozilla’s Prism for that. You’ll also have access to a huge library of Firefox add-ons to enhance your browsing experience.

Will Chrome OS be any different than what I’ve described above? Maybe a little, but I’m not getting my hopes up for Thursday’s announcement. What about you?

By Ian Paul
November  18, 2009

Google phone rumors are back with a vengeance, spurred on by reports that the Internet behemoth Google is partnering with phone maker HTC on a “super” Android device thinner than the Droid and iPhone. The release date for this Google-branded phone is early 2010, according to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, who reported a Google Phone was in the works Tuesday.

Rumors of a Google phone are nothing new, although speculation did start to disappear once Android-based phones hit the market last year. But this is the second time a Google phone rumor has popped up in recent weeks, and Arrington’s rumor bear a striking resemblance to what we’ve heard before.

The Real Google Phone

Taking a page out of Apple’s “we control the customer experience” playbook, Google reportedly wants to produce a handset that will be completely dictated by the team in Mountain View. Details about the phone are incredibly thin. There’s no word on what kind of specs the handset would have, but potential manufacturers for the phone, according to Arrington, include LG and Samsung. A major advertising campaign introducing the phone could reportedly start as early as January 2010.

Google will reportedly sell its phone directly to customers as well as through retailers. That suggests the search giant may not have a network partner on board, and would sell unsubsidized phones instead. Phones sold outside of the carrier system means the Google phone could cost as much as $500, and would have to run on a SIM-friendly GSM.

While a carrier-free Google phone would be an unusual move in the age of exclusivity contracts, it’s not unheard of. Handset makers such as RIM and Palm sell unlocked versions of their smartphones through Amazon and other retailers.

The suggestion that the phone will not be tied to a specific carrier, backs up a previous assertion by Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumor who made similar claims last month after Google’s “design partners” filled him about the phone, according to the Street.com.

The iPhone is Not Beta
A phone experience created and designed exclusively by Google will inevitably draw comparisons with Apple’s iPhone. And, as Arrington points out, for good reason. Just as the iPhone is Apple’s vision of the handset, a Google-branded phone would be a competing vision of what the smartphone should be.

But while dictating the phone experience makes sense for Apple — a company that has a long history in designing polished hardware — Google is not about launching polished products. Can the company that made beta a punchline deliver on a complete customer experience the first time around? Sure, the original iPhone lacked smartphone basics like cut-and-paste, video capability, and MMS. But with the exception of video, those are all software issues. The fact is, from a hardware perspective, the original iPhone was a revolutionary and complete product. There’s no question iPhone hardware has improved over time, but that doesn’t take anything away from the original design.

Google, on the other hand, is all about delivering an incomplete product and then fixing and improving it over time. But you can’t do that with a physical product. For smartphones there is no such thing as beta. You either get it right at launch or you don’t. It’s as simple as that.

Another question is how Google’s Android partners will react to a Google phone? As my colleague JR Raphael pointed out last month, Google has worked hard to convince manufacturers to embrace the Android platform. Changing roles from Android facilitator to Android competitor, could hamper those efforts.

By Juan Carlos Perez
IDG News Service
November 11, 2009

Google has invented a new programming language designed to reduce the complexity of coding without compromising the performance of applications.

Called Go, the language has been tested internally at Google but is still at an experimental stage, so the company is releasing it Tuesday as open-source code in the hope that it will get help with its future development.

“We developed Go because we had become a bit frustrated with how difficult software development has become in the last 10 years or so,” said Rob Pike, principal software engineer at Google.

Go aims to improve on the way existing programming languages manage dependencies, which are the software components that applications re-use, such as libraries, Pike said. The language also is designed to handle multiprocessor work particularly well, thanks to its concurrent programming model.

Google started working on Go about two years ago and devoted a team to work on it full time about a year ago. It was conceived as a language for systems programming, such as Web servers, storage systems and databases. However, Google is open to seeing it branch out into other areas.

At this point, Go isn’t used in any user-facing Google service or application, since it still has to mature, which is where external programmers come into the picture. “We need better libraries and tools, and the open-source community is great at helping you with things like that,” Pike said.

By creating a new programming language, Google continues making inroads into the realm of computing building blocks, prompted by a sense of urgency at making them better. This motivation has also led Google to embark on developing the Android mobile operating system, the Chrome PC brower and the still-unreleased Chrome operating system.

By Nancy Gohring
IDG News Service
November 11, 2009

Logitech plans to acquire LifeSize Communications, a company that makes HD video communications equipment, for US$405 million in cash, the companies said Tuesday.

Logitech, whose video business is focused mainly on Web cams, hopes the deal will allow it to offer video communications systems for other settings besides the desktop, it said. LifeSize targets a wide range of customers including enterprises that want installations in their boardrooms, small and medium-sized businesses, and home office workers. It also targets education, health care and government customers.

LifeSize has 9,000 video conferencing customers in 80 countries, Logitech said.

The acquisition could put Logitech in competition with companies including Cisco Systems, which has been pushing deeper into the telepresence and videoconferencing markets. Cisco is currently trying to buy videoconferencing provider Tandberg for $3 billion, although it has yet to secure a deal.

Logitech said it will work with unified communications and VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) partners to encourage a more open environment in which video communications systems can interoperate.

Logitech hopes to close the deal in December subject to customary closing conditions, including antitrust approvals. If the deal goes through, LifeSize will operate as a Logitech division from its current location in Austin, Texas.

By Rick Broida
November 9, 2009

It’s an age-old question: When you’re done using your laptop, or just taking a break from work, should you put it to sleep, let it hibernate, or turn it all the way off?

Allow me to answer by way of a mnemonic: hibernate is great. You see, sleep mode (a.k.a. standby) puts your system into an off-like state, allowing you to pick up where you left off after just a few seconds (unlike rebooting, which can take minutes). But a PC in standby mode continues to consume battery power, so it’s not uncommon to return to a “sleeping” PC to find that it’s just plain dead.

Hibernate, on the other hand, writes your machine’s current state to a temporary hard-drive file, then shuts down completely (much like “off”). When you start it up again, it loads that file and returns you to where you left off–no booting required.

Both ends of the hibernate process take a little longer than standby (usually 10-20 seconds, in my experience), but you avoid any of the issues that can arise when Windows suddenly loses power. What’s more, standby is a notoriously flaky mode. I’ve encountered plenty of systems that refuse to wake up properly, so you end up losing whatever work you were trying to preserve.

Consequently, unless you’re running your laptop on AC power, I recommend using hibernate most of the time.

And here’s a handy related tip: You can change the function of your laptop’s power button so that pressing it automatically activates hibernation.

By Ian Paul
November 9, 2009

Twitter made its new retweet function available to a limited number of users on Thursday, as it tests the new feature before rolling it out across its entire network. Retweets are just one part of what looks like a larger push by the self-proclaimed “information network” to make Twitter.com just as usable as the multitude of free Twitter clients out there like Tweetdeck, HootSuite and Seesmic. In addition to Retweets, the company also announced on Thursday that it would start editing its trending topics to make the feature more relevant, and last month Twitter launched a Lists feature allowing users to organize their Twitter streams.

Retweets
Retweeting is just a fancy way of saying that one user has re-posted the message of another user. If you were following PC World on Twitter, for example, a typical retweet would look something like this: “PC World: RT @ianpaul trying out Twitter.com.”

Twitter is aiming to improve retweets by highlighting the message creator as opposed to the user who is re-posting the message. So instead of seeing a tweet from the person you follow, the original tweet would show up in your Twitter stream with a small credit at the bottom to let you know who, among the people you follow, retweeted the message.

The new format will look something like this: “Ian Paul: trying out Twitter.com.–retweeted by @pcworld and three others.” This is a great format since it will make it easier for you to discover other interesting people to follow based on what appears in your Twitter stream.

Curating Trending Topics and Lists
Trending topics allows you to see the ten most popular discussion topics on Twitter in real time. The problem is, this list can easily be overtaken by useless memes or pranks–remember the gorilla penis fiasco? Twitter wants to take a little more control over what can get onto its trending topics list by cutting out the noise and highlighting particularly useful or timely discussions. The company says you won’t really notice anything at first, but it hopes to improve the relevance of this feature over time.

Another feature that recently became available to most users is Twitter Lists. This allows you to organize your incoming Tweets into categories like profession, subject matter, family members, and so on.

Twitter Wants You Back
While Twitter’s new features like retweeting and the newly added lists feature are being made available to developers of third-party applications, Twitter’s newest improvements also look like a serious effort to convince users to use Twitter.com instead.

Metrics firm ComScore consistently reports that about 20 million users visit Twitter every month. Add to that information from Tweet Stats (a third-party Twitter metrics site), which typically reports Twitter’s Web traffic hovering around 30% of all Twitter usage, and you can see there’s a huge base of regular Twitter users out there that never, or rarely, visit Twitter.com.   If Twitter’s future plans for monetization include increasing its Web traffic, it’s not hard to see why the company has been so busy tweaking its own user interface in recent months.

November 5, 2009

IP Converge, the information technology & telecommunications division of publicly listed IPVG and Geodata Systems Technologies have entered into a strategic tie-up that brings the most complete fleet management system to the Philippine and South East Asian market.

Under the partnership, IP Converge brings together Convoy FMS and Geodata’s ArcLogistics and Archibus to create a comprehensive, end-to-end fleet management solution that outperforms existing fleet management systems in the marketplace.

“This partnership combines world-class fleet management solutions in Convoy FMS, ArcLogistics and Archibus that address the deficiencies of other fleet management systems. Beyond tracking vehicles, the collective solution expands management’s ability to set and enforce protocols for vehicle users and optimizes fleet utilization to save on overhead and contribute to the bottom-line,” says IP-Converge President, Reynaldo Huergas.

Convoy FMS is a Web-based, user-friendly GPS fleet management system developed by Lazer Technology Solutions that uses Google Maps as a platform. Convoy FMS delivers detailed information on a vehicle’s activities to a laptop or Web-enabled mobile device in real time. The solution has nationwide coverage and two-way communication is done between a device installed in the vehicle and the end-user through GPRS (General Packet Radio Service).

IP-Converge was recently appointed by LazerTech as the exclusive distributor of Convoy FMS in the South East Asian region. The Miami-based IT solutions and applications development company chose IP-Converge for its robust sales force and its proven track record in advancing Web-based applications in the Philippine market. LazerTech’s fleet management system has several thousands of licenses issued with installations in ten countries spanning five continents.

ArcLogistics is a stand-alone management application created by Environment Systems Research Institute, a global leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and mapping solutions. The application is designed to solve vehicle routing and scheduling problems and set the optimum routes to maintain efficient use of resources such as time and fuel. ArcLogistics is dynamic and adjusts as problems or roadblocks arise ensuring that deliveries arrive on time and customer satisfaction is preserved.

Archibus Fleet Management, a product of total Infrastructure and Facilities Management Solutions company, Archibus, based in Boston, Massachusetts, maintains an organization’s fleet of mobile assets and is crucial to the safety and efficiency of fleet operations. Through Archibus, fleet managers can optimize utilization and performance of fleet assets by tracking every vehicle’s usage, availability and maintenance schedules. This information improves management’s ability to control costs and assign resources.

“IP-Converge’s vision for this fleet management product is compatible with ours and we look forward to working closely with them in identifying growth opportunities and achieving a high rate of adoption across markets.  The Philippines and other South East Asian countries have robust and resilient economies and this partnership illustrates an opportunity to help companies better manage their fleet assets and enable them to drive their business and be more competitive in their respective niches,” says John Morales, senior VP of Geodata Systems Technologies.

IP-Converge is a regional data center whose core competency is managed data services particularly server co-location, connectivity solutions, and network security. IPC is also one of the Philippines’ leading business solutions and services providers, promoting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Geodata Systems Technologies, Inc. is an information technology company focused on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping solutions and GIS ready data products.

By Tony Bradley
November 6, 2009