Choto Cheeta Online » Windows

Microsoft it self doesn’t care about IE6 ?

Choto Cheeta — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:27:25 +0000

Browser compatibility is a big issue for them who are in web development related tread. Now days cross platform compatibility test and tweak takes more time than actual development process.

There are number of browsers in the market and those who work with CSS and style coding know how hard it becomes to make a website compatible with every browser.

Although Microsoft has stopped supporting IE6, but still a large number of web users, almost 20% to be exact, is still using IE6 hence for a web publisher, IE6 compatibility does matter a lot. Infact, Microsoft it self has bundled IE6 as in terms of Windows XP mode in its latest OS Windows 7, emphasizing on the ability to test web applications directly from present OS.

Recently, when I was trying to implement a new theme, I faced lot of issue while making it compatible with IE6. While I was spending few sleepless nights around it, I wanted to see how Microsoft’s own websites look in IE6. I didn’t had to look much, as links mentioned in Microsoft home page turned out to be IE6 incompatible.

Take a look at Microsoft Office 2010 Beta page in IE6. Which seems to be broken up while opened under IE6 browser.

There should be an universal layout standard to make the code work in all browser and web platform. And as for Microsoft, it seems, they them self aren’t interested in welcoming 20% of Internet users.

Windows Mobile 7 or rather the ZUNE phone is finaly here

Choto Cheeta — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:13:11 +0000

Finlay after a long delay and a super secrete development process, Microsoft is launching their next version of Windows mobile.

The Windows Mobile 7 series, which is suppose to change the way smart phones worked. Check out the launching video to get a more inside look at the upcoming device.

Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 7 Series – Watch the launch press conference video
Discover the new features of this new slick device – Windows Mobile 7 website
Behind the scene – Development of Windows Mobile 7
Windows Phone channel on You Tube / Facebook / Twitter

Things what we get to know from this early videos and projections are like,

Every Windows Mobile 7 series phone would be a ZUNE HD also, hence expect them to be Hard disc based.
Windows mobile 7 heavily concentrates on cloud hence just like iPhone, expect it to be bandwidth hungry.
Full touch screen (HD) with multi-touch feature
Microsoft is concentrating to integrate more and more 3rd party cloud services with Windows Mobile 7 than any other manufacturer have done previously

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Download all the Official Windows 7 Themes from a single location

Choto Cheeta — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:51:49 +0000

It was Windows 95, where we first had the option to switch themes to enjoy a new desktop everyday. Back in those days it helped to refresh the old computers with new themes but some how with Win2k and onwards, themes went missing as the OS started come with just 2 option, one graphics hungry and another light version.

But with Windows 7, Microsoft has brought the concept of themes back to mainstream. The default installation of Windows 7 would carry couple of themes with it, where as one may find a bunch of themes based on many concept at Windows 7 Personalization Gallery hosted by Microsoft.

What is a Theme ?

A theme is a combination of pictures, colors, and sounds on your computer. It includes a desktop background, a screen saver, a window border color, and a sound scheme. Some themes might also include desktop icons and mouse pointers.

There are close to 50 official Windows 7 theme files available for download from Microsoft ranging from few KBs to as high as 15 MBs.

All the theme packs are available as individual download and it has been a issue of talk in many discussion boards and forums that it is a painstaking process for those who wants all the themes as one has to download one by one, each of the theme packs.

Where can you download all the theme packs together ?

Well, there are no official location of ZIP given by Microsoft, but I have downloaded all the theme packs and uploaded them here as a single ZIP file.

Download them all (All 48 official themes of MS Win7) from Choto Cheeta Online.

This zip files contains following theme packs,

* Australia * Avatar * Avatar * Baltic * Beaches (Poland) * Baltic Beaches (Poland) * Bicycle Ride (Taiwan) * Bicycle Ride (Taiwan) * Bing’s Best * Brazil * Canada * Cats Anytime * China * Happiness Factory * Dogs in Winter * Ducati * Ferrari * France * Gears of War * Germany * Green Island (Taiwan) * Greg Straight (New Zealand) * India * Infiniti * Italy * Japan * Korea * Landscapes (Latvia) * Landscapes (Poland) * Lugares Coloridos * Mexico * Nature (Latvia) * Nature (Poland) * Netherlands * Refresh Everything * Poland * Porsche * Russia * South Africa * Spain * Summit on the Summit * Syue Mountain (Taiwan) * Taiwan * Turkey * Twinkle Wish * United Kingdom * United States * Wieliczka (Poland) * Zune Characters * Zune Elements * Zune Zodiac *

Quick look at TATA Photon TV -> Wireless television streaming / broadcasting via TATA Photon+

Choto Cheeta — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:07:27 +0000

TATA indicom becomes the first Indian ISP to offer live television streaming via its EVDO / HSIA wireless network. Recently TATAindicom has tied up with Apalya Technologies, a Hyderabad based company to launch the Photon TV service on Adobe Air platform.

TATAindicom is presently providing the CDMA 1x service in 22 states and has a large EDVO / HSIA network on most of the big cities.

How to get Photon TV

You may start the service by downloading the TV viewing tool. Which is around 17MB and available for free download.

Do take a note here, the Adobe Air run time given with this tool seems to be out dated as right after the installation, my adobe update center informed me that there is an updated version of Adobe Air run time available. Meaning another 10+MB of download.

Presently the application supports only Windows platform and I have tested and found it working with XP (x64) / Vista (x64) and Win 7 (x64).

The Application interface / How to use TATA Photon TV

The main start up screen of the application would through you a window with 3 options

Channel list
My channels
Help

For a first time user, you may find My Channel to be empty. Where as under Channel list, you can click any channel to get the option to select your subscription.

Tariff / price and subscription Plans

Single Channel : @ Rs. 4 per month.
My 10 : Combination of 10 channels @ Rs 29 per month.
My Full Pack : All channels @Rs75 per month.
Around 2 MB/minute of data consumption while streaming.

There are around 40 channels available to chose from and under Full Pack, you get to see all of them. It may appear dead cheap given that you can watch it in your notebook while you are in move but the biggest down side is that TATA is going to charge you for streaming video.

It seems, it is consuming around 2 MB of data for each minute of streaming, meaning even if I am under the top plan (15GB), still I would run out of bandwidth within 125 to 130 hours. That’s around 4 hours of TV each day for Rs. 1500/- + 10% TAX.

How is the performance

Its developed with Adobe Air. Meaning Web technology brought to desktop. It feels like streaming youtube but via a desktop based application.

So everything depends on the speed of the device and network. Although the HSIA network which is suppose to be a 3.1 MBPS network but on real time, if having 95+ singal bar and off peak hours, like night time, the real time speed stays around 2 mbps and streaming seems quite OK with occasional lags while my mail client or any other application is accessing the network.

But its a big let down when I am on move, like accessing it from a moving car or at peak hours like at noon. There is a lot of lag on real time streaming.

Verdict and final call

TATA has the edge now over its competitors like BSNL (EVDO) and RelianceNET connect (HSIA) as they are the first to offer this service.

But Rs. 1500/- + Rs. 75/- + 10% TAX for 4 hours of TV per day (2mb/m with highest data plan) and then Rs. 1 for per minute of TV ??

Certainly not a service for me at-least.

But people like share traders and business owner will like it a lot as they can watch their favorite business channel like CNBC TB 18 or NDTV profit, right on their notebook while enjoying their coffee break or a little outing.

How to install / How to create a bootable installation USB / flash drive of Windows 7

Choto Cheeta — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:32:10 +0000

Netbook computers are fast becoming mainstream products. To cut weight of the portable devices, its now becoming a common practice by vendors to ship portable computers (Laptop / Notebooks) with smaller screen and without any optical (CD / DVD) drive.

Ever since we have stepped in to the broadband edge, people are finding it easy to stream or download (purchase) movies / music / software online rather than buying physical copy of it. Hence lack of an optical drive is not causing any major issue for day to day computing.

However, there is one major section of computing, which requires an optical drive as must. That is, the phase of installation of an (OS) Operating System. Although, most of the time, any new netbook (ASUS EEEPC / Acer Aspire One / 7″ / 10inch / 11″ screen based products) / notebook / laptop would come with an pre-installed OS, but there are certain situation, where we may find you self in need of upgrading or installing the OS (let’s face it, Windows installations do get wrong sometime), where as, many Netbooks are coming without any OS or with Freedos or Linux, in which an user may feel to put his own OS.

So how can you install Windows on a Computer / Netbook / Notebook / Laptop which doesn’t have an optical (CD / DVD) drive ?

There are couple of options, like,

Using an external USB based optical (CD / DVD) drive
Network deployment installation
Installation via USB / flash / pen / thumb drive

Up-till now, Microsoft didn’t have any official method or way for supporting the USB installation method. If someone wanted to do so, had to do via many complicated guides on How to install Windows via USB drive or how to create bootable installation USB drive.

However things are about to change with Microsoft releasing a tool called Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.

What is Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool ?

It is a tool which can either create a bootable installation DVD or USB drive of Windows 7 from an ISO image of Windows 7.

How to use Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to create a bootable installation USB / pen drive and install Windows from it ?

The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool requires a PC running Windows XP / Vista or Windows 7. You can download the tool from here.

Installation

The installation is pretty straight forward, simple few clicks and you have the program installed and ready to be executed.

Using the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Click the Windows Start button, and click Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool in the All Programs list to open the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool.

In the Source File box, type the name and path of your Windows 7 ISO file, or click Browse and select the file in the Open dialog box.

Select USB to create a copy on a USB flash drive or DVD to create a copy on a DVD disk, then click Next.

If you are copying the file to a USB flash drive, select your USB device in the dropdown list and click Begin copying. If you are copying the file up to a DVD, click Begin burning.

Hey its open source by the way..

Developers may find this very interesting as the product is open source and available under GPL.

Use Windows Installer CleanUp Utility to fix Faulty / bad / corrupt installation of any software

Choto Cheeta — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:08:49 +0000

Some time due to many reasons, installation of a software may go wrong and the left over can cause trouble for your Windows. Many software vendors provide cleanup utility for their specific software, where as many doesn’t.

However Microsoft provides a tool called “Windows Installer CleanUp Utility (originally made to remove MS Office)“, which seems to detect and capable of removing any left over or any corrupt software. If traditional uninstall fails, then you may use this tool to remove the software from Windows.

Do you have a genuine Windows ?

Choto Cheeta — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:10:45 +0000

Here is a Microsoft video, explaining users about Piracy and certain ways to determine genuine product along with the benefits of a genuine product.

Microsoft also lists samples of counterfeit or pirated products. List of such can be seen given in their Counterfeit Gallery.

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3 simple steps to browse faster with Internet Explorer under a slow connection

Choto Cheeta — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:57:04 +0000

If you are using a slower Internet connection, 3 simple steps can help improve your browsing experience with Internet Explorer.

1. Turning off graphics in Internet Explorer

Under Tools menu, click Internet Options

Internet Options under Tools Menu" src="http://www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/3_step_IE_01.jpg" alt="Internet Explorer 8 -> Internet Options under Tools Menu" width="234" height="450" /> Internet Options under Tools Menu" src="http://www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/3_step_IE_02.jpg" alt="Internet Explorer 8 -> Internet Options under Tools Menu" width="309" height="177" />

In Internet Options dialog box, go to the Advance tab. Now under settings, please turn / check off the following options,

Play animations in webpages
Play sounds in webpages
Show pictures
Play videos in webpages

2. Increase your IE’s cache size for faster browsing

Internet Explorer uses the cache to store files of webpages what you visit. So on next visit it doesn’t have to download those images and all those static page content again and again thus making the browsing experience faster

By increasing the amount of memory allocated in cache, you can allow IE to store more data for faster browsing.

Under Tools menu, click Internet Options

On General TAB under browser history / Temporary Internet files click Settings to open the dialog box where you can find the option to increase the disk space.

Increase the disk space to 250MB and set the option to check newer version of stored pages to Automatically

3. Compress (ZIP) your files before sending them as attachment

You can reduce the file size of your documents by compressing them, so when you are sending multiple files (picture / documents / spreadsheets), use Windows built in compression utility to compress them in a single zip file before attaching.

Reduced file size would mean less time and bandwidth for upload / attaching.

Windows 7 market share alone beats all version of MAC OS X

Choto Cheeta — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:23:48 +0000

According to a report published at Computer World, a survey by Net Applications has found that Windows 7 market share alone beats all version of MAC OS X.

The claim is definitely controversial as the method what they have used in survey can’t be called a full proof. Net Applications have gathered the data from Online Users as how many of them are using what OS on a single week end. The company’s executive vice president have added that although its not final but its safe to say within a very short period of time Windows 7 market share will out perform OS X on day to day stats also.

Mean while Microsoft still leads for market share with 90%+ of users being on Windows.

Microsoft ZUNE 4.0 (Software upgrade for your old ZUNE)

Choto Cheeta — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:46:02 +0000

Microsoft have released an upgrade to its ZUNE player management and PC sync software. The ZUNE 4.0 comes with new features to help you discover more entertainment to enjoy anytime, anywhere. Also is comes with a free 14-day Zune Pass to browse, stream, and download millions of songs.

So lets take a look as whats new about this upgrade.

The ZUNE 4.0 is available as free download from Zune.net. It supports both 32bit (x86) and 64bit (x64) version of Windows. Make sure you download the right version for you as there are different version for Zune on x86 and Zune on x64.

Installation

Its a 55MB download for me for my Windows 7 x64.

First run

On execution, it does warn users that the software navigation and features have changed significantly from last version hence proceed with caution.

The settings page seems the same apart from a new option pooping up as the SmartDJ.

The Interface

Player update ?

Yeah. As I connect the player, it does notify my that there is an optional update available for my player.

Updater comes with a clear warring, not to unplug while update is in progress.

Please wait.. As the Zune player displays on its screen..

Player Interface ?

At-least with my Zune 30, I could not find any change.