Several months ago I wrote about VMware’s release of VMware Player 3.0. This was a major upgrade to VMware’s free desktop virtualization offering, adding support for creating virtual machines and running them in Unity mode. Windows 7’s release, then on the other hand, boosted desktop virtualization’s position in the marketplace with XP Mode which brings a virtualized copy of XP to Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Many people have been disappointed that Windows Virtual PC, required to run XP Mode, also requires hardware virtualization support. If your computer doesn’t have it, then you simply can’t run XP Mode.
Or can you? Thanks to VMware Player, you can actually still use XP mode even without hardware virtualization! And, even if your computer can run Virtual PC, you may get better performance or features using VMware player. Check out my article at How-To Geek for all the inside information on how to do this!
For all the talk about Gmail, Hotmail is still a very viable and highly used webmail service. My main email account is a Windows Live Hotmail, and I can easily access it from Outlook, hotmail.com, or my Windows Phone, depending on what I’m doing. Most of my emails come to my @live.com Hotmail address, but I also have a number of other email accounts, including from my college, Gmail, and more. The great thing is that all of my mail is always avialable through Hotmail. No matter where I am, I can easily check Hotmail and get all of my email!
So how do I do this? Check out my article at How-To Geek for more info!
Keeping track of multiple email accounts can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re a Hotmail user, you might want to integrate all of your POP3 accounts into a single address for more efficient access.
Hotmail can send and receive emails from any POP3 enabled account, and it even supports SSL for secure connections. Most email accounts from your internet service provider, work, or school will work directly in it. Make sure to have your other account info, as you may need it in advanced setup. For this demonstration we’ll walk through setting up a Gmail account, but it should work with your other POP3 accounts as well.
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:
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!
Social networks can make your life easier. In the past, you had to individually email each of your friends, or perhaps print out 30 pictures to mail to them all. Now, one update and everyone know's what's important to you right now. Social networks can also make your life harder. Who wants to join and update the 35 trillion networks there are today?
So why do you use the networks you do? Likely, because there's a village. Facebook may not be the best possible social network, but with over 400 million members, likely almost everyone you know is already on it. Facebook must have been very quiet when it started, but now it's buzzing with activity from people you know.
Switching social networks is almost just a click away, but why switch if you get no value from the new service? If no one's there, then you'd be simply talking to yourself. Google Wave has this problem; it's only a quasi-network, but still has little to no value if no one you know uses it.
Email doesn't have this problem, and that's why Gmail could grow from no users before 2004 to being the 3rd most popular email service today. But email is decentralized; you can still email all of your old contacts from your new address. The only problem is getting people to switch their address books to your new email address.
Today Google unveiledtheir newnetwork - Google Buzz. It's built into Gmail, so it brings all of Gmail's users into Buzz automatically. So will Buzz automatically have a 37 million-member village, or will it still be starting from ground zero?
After all, to be successful, a network takes a village. No one wants to be talking to themselves.
Ok, when’s the last time someone told you to give your computer vitamins? We try to protect our computers from viruses with antivirus software, so what would giving your computer vitamins do? Well, antivirus (and antimalware) software protects your computer from digital harm and data theft, but vitamins might protect your computer and more from physical theft! Well, Vitamin D that is.
Vitamin D is an amazingly powerful home security program that was just released after a beta testing period. I recently reviewed several home surveillance programs, and came away exceedingly impressed with Vitamin D. This program lets you easily monitor your home with as many webcams as you’d like. All that video would be hard to process, though, so this is where Vitamin D’s power shines. It has sophisticated searching capabilities that let you identify motion at specific places in your video and be immediately notified via email when motion is detected. Then, if you want to review your video, you can see those instances and can even add new criteria to monitor. It will then immediately rescan your video and show you the motion from the new area you selected. I tested this in the Beta version, and it worked great! This is only a sampling of Vitamin D’s features, so check out their feature list for more information.
The best part is the price. Vitamin D is available as a free Starter edition for 1 webcam and QVGA video, or you can purchase a Basic edition ($49) for 2 cameras and up to VGA resolution or a Pro edition ($199) for an unlimited number of cameras. This makes it accessible to everyone, and you can easily choose the level of power you need. So if you’d like to make your home more secure with hardware you already have, check out Vitamin D … you might find that vitamins make your computer better, too!
I recently purchased a Samsung N150 Netbookso I could do college and work on the road easier. Desktops aren’t very portable, and smartphones aren’t enough for everything (think 1000 word essays or blog posts), so a netbook seemed like a great way to fill the gap. I plan to review the netbook soon, but wanted first to put down my initial impressions of Windows 7 Starter.
I have been running Windows 7 as my main OS since the beta release over a year ago, and upgraded to the release candidate and then the final version as soon as they were released. During the beta and RC I was (obviously) using Windows 7 Ultimate, but then purchased 7 Professional as soon as it was publically available (thanks to the Win741 student offer!). There has been a lot of discussion about the features (or the lack thereof) in Windows 7 Starter, but until now I hadn’t experienced them firsthand. Here’s my impression of Windows 7 Starter after a day of use:
This article has some great tips on converting your existing printer into a wireless printer, as well as advice on whether it makes more sense to simply invest in a new wireless printer.
One other exciting wireless print server I discovered through my research (but was not included in the published article) was the ASUS RT-N13U. This is both a wireless print server and 802.11 n router for less than the price of any one of these devices from many other companies. I've never tried it out, but at least on paper it looks very interesting and I'd be very tempted to try it if I didn't already have a n router. So check out the article, and if none of the other devices catch your imagination, come back and check the ASUS RT-N13U!
Microsoft recently released a new PowerPoint add-in, Mouse Mischief, that lets whole classrooms easily share one computer using their own mice (up to 25 mice may be used at once!)! I recently reviewed this at Digital Inspiration, so check out my article for more information:
Interestingly enough, Mouse Mischief was tested in schools in Thailand. This video shows it in use in Thailand, and in fact, it's at a school I've been to before! It's a small world! :D
If you use your computer regularly, chances are you’ll need to create screenshots. Screenshot tools are a regular part of my daily workflow since I write technology articles. I mainly use them to demonstrate programs and settings, but screenshots are also a great way to show or save what you see on your screen right now. Whether you’ve uncovered a bug in a program or want to keep a record of a recent online purchase, screenshots are the best and often only way to record this information.
There are many excellent screenshot tools available today. In fact, you likely already have a couple ready for use on your computer, including the built in Print Screen feature in Windows. Here is a roundup the most useful screenshot tools, ranging from free to paid offerings. Your favorite tool will depend on your needs, and you may even end up using more than one. Keep reading to check them out, and let us know what your favorite screenshot tool is!
WordPress is the software that powers this and millions of other blogs and websites today. It makes setting up and running a blog simple and quick, and is highly extendable through a wealth of plugins and themes. WordPress 2.9 was released in December, and discussion has already been started about the features and development of WordPress 3.0 which is due this year. One of the most exciting discussions about the 3.0 release, in my opinion, is the plan to introduce a new default theme. The famous blue and white Kubrick theme has been the default theme in WordPress since 2005, and powers many blogs even today.
Today, the new WordPress Foundation was launched, and it is powered by the development version of WordPress 3.0 and … the new 2010 theme! It is exciting to see a preview of the theme in the wild! The theme is monochrome unlike the bright blue Kubrick, but appears to be more malleable and configurable the former default theme. It is clean and gives full attention to the body text, and looks fairly similar to the many framework themes that have become popular in recent years. So if you want a glimpse of the next default theme, head over to http://wordpressfoundation.org/. And while you’re there, check out the opensource projects under the WordPress umbrella, and subscribe to their blog to keep up with the future of WordPress.
Now I can’t wait to see WordPress 3.0 and the 2010 theme released to the public!
so I could do college and work on the road easier. Desktops aren’t very portable, and smartphones aren’t enough for everything (think 1000 word essays or blog posts), so a netbook seemed like a great way to fill the gap. I plan to review the netbook soon, but wanted first to put down my initial impressions of Windows 7 Starter.