Reviews

The best Windows 7 upgrade: Home Premium

July 19, 2009 9:15 am by Jal

There are loads of websites that are now talking about the available Windows 7 upgrade options. Initially it seemed that Microsoft is going to release just one Windows 7 flavor but it turns out, we now have 3 options to choose from and that is surely going to add a dilemma to users which one to go for.

Well, here’s the thing, if you currently own Windows Vista then depending upon the flavor of Vista, you can use the corresponding flavor of Windows 7 upgrade. For example, Windows Vista Home Premium can be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium through Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade. Similarly Windows Vista Business goes with Windows 7 Professional Upgrade and Windows Vista Ultimate goes with Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade. I am mentioning the word ‘upgrade’ explicitly because the ‘full version’ discs are also available for Windows 7. They are basically used to make a clean install on PCs running on Windows Vista, Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows. Here’s the pricing chart of every flavor of Windows 7 out there:

OS↓ │ Flavor→	Upgrade	Full version
Windows 7 Home Premium	$119.99 (~ Rs. 6000)	$199.99 (~ Rs. 10,000)
Windows 7 Professional	$199.99 (~ Rs. 10,000)	$299.99 (~ Rs. 15,000)
Windows 7 Ultimate	$219.99 (~ Rs. 11,000)	$319.99 (~ Rs. 16,000)

The above table clearly shows that the Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade is the best value for money for Indian users. There is one more reason to back me up on that. The only features the Windows 7 Home Premium lacks which are there in the other two versions are:

1) Virtualization technology to run Windows XP Mode. (This feature is just for those applications that run only on Windows XP. An average home user won’t be using such legacy programs else he would not have upgraded to Windows 7 in the first place)

2) Domain Join for easily connecting to company networks. (If you are the home user, you don’t even need to know what this means. This feature will connect your network to your company’s network)

3) Automatic backup (There are plenty of alternatives available to back-up your data. The simplest being to regularly burn your important data on a DVD disc)

4) BitLocker to safeguard your data in case of theft. (Well, password protecting your folders using folder guard software gives you similar protection)

5) Switching between 35 languages (Let me tell you, Windows looks best when it is in English)

According to me, considering the money-sensitive Indian population, the above features don’t justify the difference in price between the Home Premium and the other two. Hence, the Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade is the best option for upgrading if you have Windows Vista Home Premium. If you own Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Ultimate or Windows XP and earlier for that matter, I would recommend to go for Windows 7 Home Premium Full Version.

Technorati Tags: windows 7,best upgrade option for Windows 7,windows 7 upgrade

Mini Notebook: Samsung NC20

June 29, 2009 12:57 pm by Jal

After much anticipation, Samsung finally released NC20 laptop and added a charm to its mini notebook family. Samsung NC20 is reviewed so much positively that I personally wanted my hands on it. So I visited the Samsung store in my city and did my best to accurately test it.

First of all, Samsung NC20 is for all. I mean, this is a complete notebook, power-packed with all the necessary features that anyone would need. Choosing a laptop is very complicated task these days, but Samsung NC20 is something which will urge you to make it yours. Why? Here’s what I felt while I experienced it for complete 2 hours.

The glossy screen of 12.1 inch WXGA (1280 x 800) is just perfect for everybody. When I travel in trains, I want something large enough to see my HD movies crisp and sharp but also it should not occupy more space. Samsung NC20 is slim and can fit in your lap so perfectly and comfortably. With 1.6GHz VIA Nano U225 processor and VIA Chrome 9 HC3 Graphics, I am sure it will play my Blu-ray 1080p Hi-Def films so smoothly without any lags.

Now, as I travel a lot I want my laptop to run for long hours and Samsung NC20 was able to impress me a lot. It has a mindblowing battery life of 8 hours. That surely can make a journey interesting. I also found out that it has an anti-bacterial keyboard which provides hygienic computing environment. Other features include a 1.3 MP camera and an integrated mic for video conferencing and chatting, Bluetooth and it comes with a Genuine Windows XP Home edition.

So, after 2 hours of experiencing the awesomeness, I would say that Samsung NC20 is more than just a notebook. It can be a companion for me while travelling, for my Dad to do his office work, for my Mom to keep it in the kitchen and learn cookery tips over the wireless internet, for my grandparents to talk to my relatives abroad using the integrated camera and mic. It is really made for all.

Know more about Samsung NC20 and its features.

You can read more Samsung NC20 reviews here.

Technorati Tags: samsung,samsung NC20 review

Bing: Not good enough

June 2, 2009 15:39 pm by Jal

I can understand this whole brouhaha about Microsoft Bing. But why? Just because there is nothing more happening in the search engine arena. Or is it because people got bored of Google and wanted something new to just talk about or may be even worse, they got carried away by looking at a video of Bing that Microsoft showed just before its release. Whatever may be the reason is, I think Bing is not even close to what is expected from it. Sure it has potential, but mother Microsoft ‘delivered’ baby Bing prematurely which still needs proper ‘incubation’.

The first and the foremost thing is that, the indexing of Microsoft Bing is just like Live Search and don’t ask me whatever happened to Live Search. The interface.. frankly speaking, I didn’t like it. Look at the Bing logo. Utter crap. I mean you’re Microsoft for cryin’ out loud, you made Vista, you made Windows 7, totally mindblowing creations of all time, aesthetics and sense of ergonomics is in your blood and then what happened? Ok. Microsoft wanted to create a search engine and it did. It was lucky enough to create all the hype but now what? I am not interested in seeing a natural scenery in the background while I search. When I search for Maps, I don’t want my place to be shown miles away from the seashore when in fact I live just near the seashore. Yes, the maps search feature of Bing which directs me to Microsoft Virtual Earth has flaws in it. It doesn’t matter much but when it comes from the software giant like Microsoft, it is just not acceptable.

According to the Virtual Earth map shown by Bing and considering the indicator of 5km shown at the bottom right corner, Valsad is approximately 15km away from sea-shore and Tithal (click the picture for larger view) is approximately 10km from the sea-shore. But the fact is, Valsad is just 4.5km and Tithal is just 0.5 km away from sea-shore. Now see what Google has to offer:

According to the indicator shown at the bottom left corner, the scaling and labelling is just perfect. This is called information. Right information. Like as they say “No information at all is better than wrong information”. In fact Bing put forward Microsoft’s flaws in its Virtual Earth. I never used Virtual Earth and may be if it wasn’t for Bing, I would have never known that Microsoft Virtual Earth had flaws.

No, the spanking is not over yet. Let’s now focus on the feature upon which Bing exists: The Search. I appreciate the efforts of Microsoft has put in to ‘see’ into the mind of a user what he really wants but that’s where it went too cheesy and methodical. On the other hand, Google, much more human-like, gives you results not by ‘reading your minds’ but what’s more relevant to you and that is what really a person is searching for. For example: When I typed “jal desai” crud in Bing as well as Google, Bing was totally clueless what I was searching for and gave me no results. Whereas Google, tried hard and brought me two results from my personal blog which had the above words. Bing lost it.

Moreover, Bing came with a bang that everybody thought it would surpass Google. But I don’t see any worth while improvements in Bing. What more disgusting is the Preference settings in Bing. What’s new in that? Turn suggestions on/off, number of results on a page, language, wtf? I have been doing these same old things with Google since ages.

Recently, Bing came under a controversy that pornographic content is very easily accessible through it. So as a caution measure, it disallowed showing results if words like ‘sex’, ‘porn’, etc are searched. This is insane! Instead of filtering the results, it completely blocked the search which blocked even those results that were not so pornographic in nature. Take an example of this blog-post. As I have mentioned words like ‘sex’ and ‘porn’ in this blog post, chances are that this blog-post or even my whole blog won’t show up in Bing. I am sure you understand the fuzziness of such words which cannot be and should not be restricted in just one context.

I have just started using Bing so I may add more to what I have mentioned above. I haven’t still covered the ‘Related Searches’ feature and SEO optimization of websites to list up in Bing. I am sure there is lot more to write but as of now, I am not impressed. I am trying my best to start liking Bing and let Bing impress me just because it is from Microsoft. It is an awesome company, everything about Microsoft is awesome, Billy G is awesome and so is Steve Ballmer. What I do liked about Bing is the video search. It is not so great but it is very handy. However, I would still say that Bing needs to get evolved pretty fast before the downward curve of its popularity begins. As of now: Google rocks and Bing..not good enough!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Bing,Bing,bing not good enough,bing not as expected

Windows Live Movie Maker Beta – Utter Crap!

January 24, 2009 20:07 pm by Jal

Sure something has gotten into Microsoft when they developed Windows Live Movie Maker Beta. Now a part of Windows Live essentials, this version of Windows Movie Maker is just next to crap. At least it seems so. Yesterday I had some videos to decorate and so I merrily opened Windows Live Movie Maker for the first time after installation and to my surprise, this was all I could see:

The interface is no doubt clean, but it is really missing some core components which were available in the previous versions. Most of the options are just not there. You cannot insert title/ending credits, no representation in the form of frames, cutting multiple parts of a video is tiresome, very less transitions and effects options are some of the glitches. Before going ahead, see another screenshot:

Did you see that? That’s all we have. Just 3-4 transitions and 7-8 effects options. That’s it. You cannot change the timing for how long a particular effect should last. Here’s one another screenshot of the ‘Edit’ menu:

Now if you want a captioned video with some text, then you use that ‘Textbox’ to place some text on your video. But hey wait…! There is no option for how long! It will put the text on the entire length of the video. That’s very annoying. Not to mention you cant create any credits for your video because there are no such options available.

Now when you have hardly managed to make a nice video in the Windows Live Movie Maker Beta, the moment you click ‘Save’, you realize that you can save your video in just one format (.WMV) and that too in just two resolutions. What if I want to save it as a .MPG or .AVI file? If Microsoft can offer native support for DivX and XviD formats in Windows 7, then why they compromise when it comes to saving a video file in multiple formats. And why just two resolutions? Well, as I said, this is just a Beta. Hope things get better by the time the final version is out.

Technorati Tags: windows live movie maker beta,windows live,live essentials

Bugs in Windows 7 Beta 1

January 11, 2009 12:53 pm by Jal

As you all know, Microsoft has released the Official Beta 1 of the next Windows client operating system, Windows 7 and I am sure, most of the Win Fan boys and technology enthusiasts have grabbed their copy of Windows 7 Beta 1. As it is a Beta, it is not for the faint hearted. Frequent crashes, sudden BSODs, lots of error messages and permanent loss of data are usually the symbols of a Beta Release and the user is more like a bug-hunter. I finished my Windows 7 install today afternoon and have found a few bugs which I will point out here. Before that, let me tell you, Windows 7 is not at all a bad system. It is the best windows version ever as far as features go. But because it is just in its Beta, bugs have to be there. And things will get a lot smoother in the coming versions. Be sure about that.

Bug 1: MP3 Corrupting Bug

Yes, there is this bug in Windows 7 Beta 1 that when you play an MP3 file in Windows Media Player, it ‘chops’ off the initial audio portion of the file making it useless forever. But no reason to panic.

Solution – Before you install/upgrade to Windows 7, make the whole directory of your MP3 files as READ-ONLY. By doing this, your MP3 files will remain safe even if you accidently open WMP. Quickly download hotfix KB961367 from Microsoft website. Below are the direct links to the hotfix.

Hotfix KB961367 (If you are using 32-Bit Windows 7 Beta 1 OS)

Hotfix KB961367 (If you are using 64-Bit Windows 7 Beta 1 OS)

Bug 2: Control Panel icon not changing bug

This is a minor one but can be caught very soon. The bug is that whenever you open Control Panel, its icon appears in the task bar (as usual). But then, when you click any of the options inside Control Panel, say ‘Action Center’, the window contents change, but the icon in the task bar remains that of Control Panel and not Action Center. No solution for this small bug as yet. Click the image below to enlarge it.

Bug 3: Irrelevant cursor schemes

May be it is just me but I just found this. When you open ‘Pointers’ tab in ‘Mouse Properties’ in Windows 7 Beta 1, you may see many schemes with the same name i.e. (system scheme). This obviously is a bug. See the screen shot below.

Bug 4: Explorer takes forever to load after hibernation

I don’t know whether all Windows 7 Beta 1 users are facing this problem or have even noticed it. When the computer awakes from hibernation, the explorer windows take forever to load and you see the address bar getting filled up by the green hue but never fills up completely. In ‘Computer’ window[previously known as 'My Computer'], the progress bar indicating the amount of free space for the individual drives doesn’t show up. This surely is a bug because once you reboot, everything is back to normal. The problem triggers when the computer wakes up from hibernation. Recently saw many updates available for Windows 7 Beta 1. Hope some known and unknown bugs get rectified.

Bug 5: Taskbar icons go missing on selecting ‘Never Combine’

This bug can appear in your system if you are unlucky. That’s because, many users experience this problem, many do not. Well, I do. So here it is. When you select ‘Never Combine’ option in the ‘Taskbar Buttons’ field of ‘Taskbar Properties’ and hit ‘OK’, the icons of the open windows and programs turn into a blank and transparent rectangle. However, as I said earlier, you may or may not face this problem because many Windows 7 Beta 1 users don’t experience this bug and their taskbar show icons with labels flawlessly upon selecting ‘Never Combine’. A screenshot of the bug:

Bug 6: Broken link provided in the Control Panel

This is a serious one. It may not seem so, but it is. Open ControlPanel >> All Control Panel Items >> Default Location. Now click on the blue colored link which says ‘Learn more about geographical location online’. To your surprise, you will be taken over to the Microsoft Homepage. No mention about any geographical location. That’s a bug definitely.

~~[The above list is not complete. I will add more bugs as I find them. Don’t forget to visit frequently for updated content.]~~

Technorati Tags: windows 7 bugs,windows 7,beta,bug finding