Tag Archives | Windows

Matthew @ How-To Geek

By on February 15, 2010 in How-To Geek

What’s the best way to make tech simpler? Well, what’s better than detailed how-to guides on the very best of Windows, virtualization, apps, the cloud, and more?  How-To Geek has been doing a great job at this for some time, and they have many very helpful posts with vibrant screenshots and detailed instructions on ways to make tech work better for you.  And I’m proud to announce that I’ve joined their team!  I’ve been getting situated this past week, and today my first post has been published as the featured article of the day!  I couldn’t be more excited.  So, without further introduction, here’s my first How-To Geek post about a product I love, Windows Live Mesh:

Sync Files Between Computers and Mobile Devices with Live Mesh

This is only the start, and I have tons of other exciting articles coming in addition to the usual great articles that How-To Geek publishes.  But not just there; stay tuned here too, as I’m still continuing to publish new, unique articles both here at Techinch and at Digital Inspiration as well.  Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS or Twitter feed, and I’ll post all of my new articles across the ‘net right here.  Enjoy, and let me know anything you’d like to see covered and I’ll make sure it’s covered at one of these places!

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More articles at Digital Inspiration

By on January 13, 2010 in Digital Inspiration

Here’s a second installment with links to my writing that’s been published at Digital Inspiration. Hope you find something interesting and useful here; if you, check out my first list of articles at Digital Inspiration.  I will continue to list my new articles going forward, so check back here for updates.

Wow, that was a long list!  Once again, remember to check back here at www.techinch.com frequently, as I’ll keep adding my writing from Digital Inspiration and unique articles just for Techinch.  And if you’d like to see something covered here, let me know, and I’ll try to cover it either here or at Digital Inspiration.  Enjoy!

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Testdrive Windows Home Server for Free

By on December 7, 2009 in Techinch

Microsoft jump-started the market for small, home-centric servers 2 years ago with the release of Windows Home Server, and they continue to innovate on the platform with the recent Power Pack 3 upgrade.  But not everyone has extra money lying around to buy a home server, and many are not convinced of the benefits of running one.  If you’d like to see if a Home Server would offer real value to your home or small business, you know longer have to buy a server simply to test it out.

This week, Microsoft started offering a free trial version of Windows Home Server for download.  You can easily install it on an old computer, or could even test it in one of the many free virtualization solutions for Windows such as Windows Virtual PC or VMware Player.  Simply go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/eval.mspx, download the ~800Mb ISO image, and either burn it to a disk or attach it directly to your virtual machine.  The trial only lasts for 30 days, but you could always reinstall it to give you more time to test it in your home (though of course you would have to reset your settings and re-transfer your files and backups).

If you find Home Server useful, you can easily either purchase an OEM copy of Windows Home Server for around $100 from Amazon, and could even activate your trial copy with the key from your purchased copy.  Otherwise you could purchase a stand-alone Home Server if you don’t want to use your existing setup.

If Home Server doesn’t offer enough power for you, you could try a trial of Windows Server 2008 R2.  This is a larger (>3Gb download), but the trial version actually lasts for 180 days.  If you’re a high school or college student, you can instead get a free full version of Windows Server 2008 R2, 2008, and 2003 R2 through Dreamspark.

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Kindle for PC | Amazon’s Future as a Digital Distributor

By on November 10, 2009 in Reviews, Techinch

11-10-2009 8-52-12 PM

Bookworms around the world, rejoice!  Amazon’s Kindle for PC is now available, making over 360,000 books only a click away for millions of PC owners worldwide.  Announced during the Windows 7 launch event, Kindle for PC has now been released as a beta program today.

Amazon sparked worldwide interest in the eReader market, which is now an increasingly crowded market where the Kindle competes with the Sony Reader, Barnes & Nobel’s Nook, Plastic Logic’s Que, and more.  Barnes & Noble and Sony both offer programs to read ebooks from their stores on your computer and Kindle For PCother devices.  Amazon initially only offered the Kindle program as an iPhone app, but they have now expanded and plan on supporting more platforms in the future.  Similar to Microsoft’s Zune, which is a device, a store, and a program for Windows, Kindle is now simply an eBook ecosystem that works with its standalone eReader as well as iPhones, PCs, and more.

Kindle for PC sports a clean, simple UI that integrates nicely with Windows 7 (including support for jumplists and multi-touch on new touch-screen computers) and allows you to easily read your favorite books.  After downloading the program, which works on Windows XP, Vista, and 7, you simply sign in with your Amazon account name and password.  If you already own a Kindle device or use Kindle on an iPhone, Kindle for PC will automatically download your books complete with your bookmarks, notes, and current reading location in the book.  Otherwise, you will be presented with an empty interface that shows helpful popups to highlight Kindle’s features.

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A Modest Proposal for Windows 7 Pricing

By on February 23, 2009 in Techinch

Although Microsoft has announced which versions they intend to ship Windows 7 in, they have not said anything officially about pricing yet. Part of the anouncement that was suprising was that they said that they will ship Windows 7 Starter edition globally. Starter edition dates back to XP, and it was the edition intended for cheap computers in emerging markets. A stripped-down and low cost version, starter edition only allows 3 programs to run at one time, among other restrictions. Right now XP and Vista starter are sold as a low-cost OEM option in countries like Thailand and India, but now Microsoft is saying that they intend to ship 7 Starter to all markets. But they haven’t said how much they will charge for it. Here’s my suggestion … Make it a free download from Microsoft, just like Visual Studio Express. Basically make it “Windows 7 Express” – a free, yet feature limited, version.

This would make great sense for all parties. First, who in their right mind would pay for an OS that only lets you run 3 programs at once? I’ll stick with the OS I already have, thank you very much. But serously, actually, 3 programs would be ok for many home users, and a free version could be an upgrade path off of the old OS they are currently using. This could prevent piracy in many markets. Second, Microsoft would benefit, for many users would decide to upgrade 7 Starter to a paid version of Windows 7 for more features, thus getting revenue they would have otherwise missed. This would target a group that would never upgrade otherwise, so if they didn’t end up buying a higher version it still wouldn’t be lost revenue. Third, for enthusiasts and IT pros, think of how nice it would be to have a free, limited version of Windows for virtualization and testing! Few are likely to buy a copy of Windows for these purposes, so again, no real lost revenue. But it could result in many more people worldwide using Windows 7, which overall is more profitable for the Windows brand.

And while we are on this, let me say that Windows upgrades should be much cheaper than they currently are. If it costed between $25-$50 to upgrade to Windows 7, many more people would upgrade. Also they should have a family upgrade packagw that would allow you to upgrade 3 computers to Windows 7 for $90 or so. And having a free starter edition and cheaper upgrades, piracy rates should go down tremendously.

Think about it!

Note: Despite the title of the post, I wasn’t meaning it to be satire … I think the idea I’m giving here is a good one ;-)

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