Category Archives: Microsoft

Post specific to Microsoft / Windows O/S.

BPCA PortableApps Presentation

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On Tuesday, January 29, 2013, I gave a presentation to the Broward Personal Computer Association, about Portable applications for the Windows OS.

Portable Applications for MS Windows from Steve Costello

License

The presentation is under a Creative Commons License shown on the next to last slide.

If you are with another computer user group and wish to use this as a basis of a similar presentation, go to the contact page of this blog, and request that I send you the notes.

Please include your name, title, the club’s site address, and any other information that I can verify.

Summary of Presentation

  • What a portable app is.
  • Why to use a portable app.
  • Where to get portable apps.
  • What I consider essential portable apps.
  • A practical demonstration of installing the PortableApps.com Platform, and adding portable apps, to a blank USB drive.

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Note: Updated March 20, 2013 to replace PDF copy, with a link to the Slideshare presentation.

Do you use portable apps?
What are your favorites, or what you consider essential?

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Windows 8 to Windows 7?

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English: Chris Pirillo PNG with a transparent ...

English: Chris Pirillo PNG with a transparent background (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I was going through some post regarding Windows 8, and ran across Chris Pirillo’s Locker Gnome post Should You Downgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7?. The post was a response to a question regarding the purchase of a new PC without a touchscreen, and whether it would be a good idea to downgrade to Windows 7.

In the post, he compares Windows 8 to Vista beginnings, but the best part is the advice quoted below.

What I would recommend anyone do is to try the new operating environment out for a few days to see if it works for you. There are plenty of people who prefer Windows 8 to Windows 7, and better is — and will always be — relative.

I think that is good advice, no matter what new OS is being discussed.

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What do you think?

Have you tried Windows 8 yet? If so, let me know whether you are going to stick with it, or prefer to downgrade to something more familiar.

Note: I have not yet experienced Windows 8, but intend to check it out in the near future.

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Microsoft Windows 8 – Information from Windows Secrets

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Introduction

At the December 19, 2012 general meeting of the Boca Raton Computer Society, Richard Miller (Director, Special Interest Group moderator, and Past President) presented “Windows 8: An Introduction”.

Richard’s introduction to Windows 8, was very informative, but the next morning I received my weekly newsletter from Windows Secrets.

Windows Secrets

I subscribe to the paid version of the Windows Secrets Newsletter, which has an article entitled “Eight simple steps for setting up Windows 8” in its paid content which is very informative also in the paid content.

However, for those who do not subscribe to the paid content, there are several good articles in the free subscription I think should be of interest to anyone thinking about moving up to this new operating system:

Step by step: How to safely test-drive Win8

In this article Fred Langa describes how to run the Windows 8 Consumer Preview using Oracle’s VirtualBox on a Windows 7 PC.

This article breaks the setup process into three major steps: installing an Oracle VirtualBox VPC on a Windows 7 system, setting up a new VPC within VirtualBox, and tweaking and tuning the setup to run Windows 8 Consumer Preview. When you’re done, you’ll be able to start exploring the new operating system with almost zero risk to your current setup. (Any change to a Windows system includes some risk. Make sure your PC is fully backed up before taking these steps.)

Win8 Boot guide: Your first hour with the new OS

In this article Woody Leonhard gives a run through of some Windows 8 basics. Make sure to read the assumptions and warnings from Woody in the first section before going through anything else.

This one-hour orientation takes into account all three major Windows 8 input methods: touch screen (which might work on your machine), keyboard (a very big help, even if it isn’t literally required), and mouse/single-point trackpad. If you have a multitouch trackpad, and its driver is working correctly — by no means a foregone conclusion — the trackpad should behave much like a touch screen.

 Conclusion

I have subscribed to the paid version of Windows Secrets Newsletter for years, and will continue to do so, as I always find great information, from people I have learned to trust, in each issue.

Even if you only sign up for the free subscription, you will be getting valuable information regarding all things Microsoft.

Question

Have you already tried out Windows 8?

If so, what do you think about it? If not, why not, and will you in the near future?