When Vista was released the chorus of complaints and criticisms quickly grew from a low hum to a near deafening roar. A little more than a week since Apple released Leopard and that low hum of discontent has already been amplified to the point where it’s starting to hurt my ears.

For the end users, be them in the home or in the corporate environments, the road to Windows 7 (Seven) leads more or less to Windows Vista. But for Microsoft, there is an entirely different path altogether.

The fact of the matter is that, as far as the development efforts are concerned, Vista is a wrapped up chapter. The Redmond company has already begun moving forward. Of course that Microsoft too will have intermediary stages on its way to Windows 7.

A couple of them as a matter of fact in the coming year, with the availability of the first service pack for Windows Vista and the third and final service pack for Windows XP. Currently, Vista SP1 is planned for the first quarter of 2008, following the availability of Windows Server 2008, formerly code-named Longhorn, because of the shared kernel version. XP SP3 has a more relaxed launch date, as Microsoft is focusing on Vista. The third refresh for XP will be made available by mid 2008.

At the same time, Microsoft is also beginning to build the contours of Windows 7. Seven (7) is the label of Steven Sinofsky, the senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group — the user experience of Microsoft Windows and Windows Live services. Sinofsky did nothing more than to move the tradition of product numbers from the office project to Windows.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced the availability date for Windows 7: mid 2010. The move was strategically delivered to turn users away from XP and the future providential Vista SP1 and even Windows 7, and onto Vista. As the Redmond company applauded shipping in excess of 88 million Vista incenses worldwide to its channel partners, details about Windows 7 are increasingly starting to appear.

The fact that Vista’s successor will also come to the table in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors is not the only known aspect of the operating system. Microsoft is also hard at work developing a new minimalist kernel for Windows 7, Microsoft security guru Michael Howard has already debuted security training for the operating system, and the platform will also advance wireless networking.

On top of this, Windows 7 will also contain Direct Connect as a feature, according to Bink.nu. A prototype of Direct Connect is currently in use inhouse over at Microsoft and it will reportedly become a component of the server edition of Windows 7.

Many times I need to run away from my computer quickly…but I do not want to leave my computer unlocked.

So, yes, I am extremely lazy, well clumsy too. A few times when I am in a rush to CTRL-ALT-DEL I have knocked an entire bottle of water on to my keyboard.

I know that windows has a shortcut for locking the computer. It shows up on the start menu when you remote desktop into a Windows XP machine. See the Windows Security Icon - That locks it.

Did some Google searching, and yes it is easy to create your own.

Right click on the desktop and Click on New, then Shortcut.

For the location, type this:

%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe user32.dll LockWorkStation

Click next, then give it a descriptive name like “Lock Workstation” and then click finish.

Now you have an icon to lock your computer on your desktop. You can do it without lifting two fingers (You still need one :) )

One of the most frustrating moments of my morning is getting to work and sitting there for 10 minutes while my computer boots up. Most mornings, I can get a cup of coffee and visit coworkers while my computer starts and Outlook, IE, and the other applications I use regularly open. My wait time is even more frustrating when I have an early meeting and need a document, but spend the first half of the meeting waiting for my computer to start.

One way I’ve learned to save time in the morning is to put my PC into hibernation mode in the evening. By putting my PC into hibernation mode, all the applications and documents I had open
will be exactly the same as they were when I left the previous evening. Hibernate saves an image of your desktop with all open files and documents, and then it powers down your computer. (more…)

computer, computer boots, control panel, hibernate, hibernation mode, open files, power options, shut down, turn off computer, Windows

The Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for November 2007 just came out and Vista not be receiving any updates. Windows Server 2003 will be getting an ‘Important’ update, and Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 will both be receiving a ‘Critical’ update.

Internet Explorer and Firefox are in a constant race for both the lion’s share of the browser market and for the top dog position when it comes down to which of the two products is more locked down from a security perspective. In terms of audience Internet Explorer has little contest from Firefox, although the open source browser has increased substantially its foothold on the market growing its share to approximately 15% at the end of October 2007, according to data from Net Applications. In contrast, IE accounts for the largest install base with 78%.

Security is a different matter altogether and a tad more difficult to measure up. The fact of
the matter is that the end goal of delivering top user protection is a combination of code quality and lack of vulnerabilities in the default design, along with an absent threat environment. (more…)

audience internet, browser market, code security, DNS, dns configuration, Firefox, ie, Internet, internet explorer, mac os x, mac versions, trojan, video fragment, Web, Windows, windows machine, youtube