Pirated Windows XP fades to black
Microsoft has announced a significant update to its Windows Genuine Advantage system. In future users of pirated copies Windows XP Professional - which, it says, is the version most commonly stolen - will find that their Windows desktop has been replaced by a plain black screen. In addition, a translucent message will display in the bottom-right hand corner, warning that the copy of Windows "did not pass genuine Windows validation":
Users will be able to replace the desktop wallpaper if they choose, but after one hour it will change back to the black screen. The notifications produced by previous versions of WGA, which pop up from the system tray, will continue to appear.
The new notification system mirrors the one used in Windows Vista, but with one crucial difference. A Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed to Zdnet that the new WGA system for XP Professional does not include the "kill switch" that severely limited the abilities of non-validated copies of pre-SP1 Windows Vista.
More information on the WGA blog.
August security update for Internet Explorer now available
Word from the IEBlog that the IE Cumulative Security Update for August is now available. It is on Windows Update so should be downloading now if you have Automatic Updates enabled.
As this update is rated Critical, I'd recommend heading over to the Update site anyway just to make sure. I'm on my way there right now...
Chandler organisation software released
There are all kinds of programs around designed to help you stay organised no matter how busy you are. The best known is without doubt Outlook, but there are alternatives.
One worth looking at is Chandler, not least because it takes a very different approach. It's also open source so there's no charge to download or use. There are
Rather than organise by tasks, events and contacts, Chandler organises by projects, bringing all three together into one place. It makes a certain amount of sense especially when dealing with different groups of people.
One of the things that excites me about Chandler is the online synchronisation. Not only does this allow you to access the same account from several computers, and keep them all up date, but there is a web interface for working on a shared computer.
It is possible to run a server for a Chandler account yourself, assuming that you have a computer connected to the internet running Java. Personally, I have signed up for an account with Chandler Hub to keep life simple for the moment. There's even a Chandler widget for an iGoogle page to quickly add note to a Chandler account.
Definitely worth taking a look if you want to improve your organisation.
If Chandler interests you, I can recommend the book charting it's inception, Dreaming in Code (on Amazon UK). As well as a fascinating insight into the way software is designed, it shows the problems of trying to decide how to organise large amounts of data. And it gets even harder when they try to give people the freedom to organise themselves the way they want to. I read this book over Christmas and thought it was very good.
Can your computer play HD?
We're seeing more computers supplied with Blu-ray drives and they make an attractive backup option these days; I need quite a pile of DVDs just for my photo collection, let alone other musical projects.
But the new format is not just about backups (vital though they are) but about movies in high definition.
Just like when DVD was first released, high definition is relatively demanding for even fairly modern computers. To avoid disappointment if you're considering adding a Blu-ray disc for movies, it's worth downloading and running the Cyberlink Blu-ray Disc Advisor first.
This utility looks at the hardware in the computer to see if it is up to the job of playing high definition movies. As you can see from the screen grab, my productivity is safe from movies!
Windows performance myths debunked
I recommend taking a look at this article over at Lifehacker talking about inaccurate advice for improving the performance of Windows.
There's nothing malicious in the advice that is criticised but I'm firmly of the opinion these days that there's no point in poking around with the Registry and critical settings if there isn't a direct need.
Likewise, Registry cleaners are particularly hard to evaluate. I've run them on computers and seen no discernable improvement to performance. It might improve matters but shaving even hundreds of calculations off a processor that can perform 2 billion a second isn't really going to make much difference.*
There is now an official Microsoft guide to tweaking Vista so that is probably the best place to start
*In fact the best way to demonstrate just how fast processors are was described to me by Intel a few years ago. They were talking about how their processors could go into a power saving sleep mode in just a few tens of clock ticks. That meant the computer was spending quite a lot of it's time in a power saving mode between the keystrokes of a fast typist.
Edit the Office 2007 Ribbon
Although in the main, I'm in favour of the Office 2007 ribbon, it can be frustrating to have lost control over how the toolbars work*.
There is more scope for customisation than first appears and it is possible to create tabs for the Ribbon. A video on editing the Ribbon can be found on the MSDN Office Developer Centre in various video formats along with all of the code used, so there's no need to type it all by hand.
It is rather techie, and you will need a copy of Visual Studio to edit the code (sadly the Express Editions of Visual Basic or C# don't appear to be enough - I'd love to be proved wrong if I've missed something). But even if you don't want to get your hands dirty, it's a fascinating insight into the way that Office works.
Editing toolbars in Word 2003
* For example I spent a few minutes removing the icons and toolbars I never use and adding in some that I wanted. For example, there was no point having icons for copy and paste because I always use the keyboard shortcuts. On the other hand I do need the word count box so that in. The rulers were also turned off because I rarely have to pay attention to layout, only the content. This is what I came up with.
August wallpapers from Smashing Magazine
A new, a new collection of wallpapers from Smashing Magazine, all of which are free. Always good for some variation.
A more effective Desktop
No matter what you do, there will always be some icons on the Desktop. I know mine is particularly cluttered but that's because it offers a good place for jogging my memory.
Rather than try and avoid icons on the desktop, Gabriel Radic has created a wallpaper that helps organise them, and it's available on Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Link via Lifehacker.com
Looking forward to Internet Explorer 8
The Internet Explorer Weblog has announced that the second test version (beta) of Internet Explorer 8 will be released in August.
Whether you like IE or prefer Firefox or Opera, the release of IE8 will be a significant event and it will be interesting to see how it affects web sites. The various idiosyncrasies of IE have forced web developers to tweak sites so that they are compatible. As IE follows web standards better, some of these tweaks may break web sites. I'd better check all of my web pages soon.
If you want to take a look at Internet Explorer 8, it can be downloaded from the Microsoft web site. Do bear in mind this is a test version, so it's best to run it on a non-critical computer, or maybe in a virtual one.
Time to check for Firefox 3 updates
There's a couple of security updates out for Firefox and Thunderbird. The Inquirer has reported that automatic updates are disabled in Firefox 3 so users have to download the new version, Firefox 3.0.1, by hand. This may have been fixed because my installation of Firefox updated itself this morning.
If you're not sure if you are running the latest version, here's how to find out.
Start Firefox. Click on the Help menu and then on About Firefox. A window should appear like the one on the right with the version number underneath the large 'Firefox' text.
If it isn't version 3.0.1, head over to the Firefox website to download the latest version.
