I was doing a quick Bing search for the link to VMware Player for a previous article when I was dumbfounded to see the following link description:
VMware is promoting their product with an unreleased OS ... Chrome OS !?! When I opened the link, it was quick to see that this was indeed the case. The first paragraph on the VMware player page says:
VMware Player is the easiest way to run multiple operating systems at the same time on your PC. With its user-friendly interface, VMware Player makes it effortless for anyone to try out Windows 7, Chrome OS or the latest Linux releases, or create isolated virtual machines to safely test new software and surf the Web.
The interesting thing about this is that VMware has promoted a browser appliance for years. This preconfigured virtual machine essentially contains the Firefox browser in a stripped-down Linux environment, not at all unlike what Google is doing with Chrome OS. Perhaps in the future they plan to offer a prebuilt virtual machine of Chrome OS instead of their own offering.
This is an interesting development for an OS that was only fully unveiled as ongoing project a little over a month ago. Although I can't imagine using an operating system that only contains a browser for my main operating system, I am very interested in what Google will do with Chrome OS. Apparently VMware is too!
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.
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 other 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.
New Kindle users will want to purchase an ebook or download a free one from Kindle’s store, and Kindle for PC offers easy access to this on the right hand side of the toolbar. Rather than offering in-app access to Amazon’s Kindle Store, the “Shop in Kindle Store” link simply opens Amazon’s Kindle site in your browser. However, it is very easy to purchase and download a book; if you are logged into your Amazon account, simply click “Buy it now with 1-Click,” and select the device you wish to send the book to (select your PC if you want to read it on Kindle for PC).
Once you have downloaded books, your Kindle interface will display your new digital library. Full color covers allow you to easily find the book you want to read, and you can easily sort your library by author, title, and most recently downloaded. Kindle makes it easy to read books, and allows you to quickly and dynamically change the font size and amount of words per line. Chapters appear as links in the table of contents, so you can easily go to the chapter you want to read. Pages scroll fast and smoothly, and work with multi-touch gestures if you have a touch screen or touchpad. Kindle will automatically remember where you left off reading, and will sync this with all of your devices (including multiple computer or Kindle devices) via Whispersync. Once you are finished with a book you can archive it to save space on your computer, which will then remove them from the computer and make them available for download from Archived Items.
In a strange shortcoming, Kindle for PC is missing several crucial features that are standard on the Kindle eReader and the iPhone app, but Amazon promises to add them in upcoming releases. These include the ability to create notes and highlights, search inside a book, and zoom and rotate images. While you can transfer PDF eBooks to the Kindle device via a USB cable or by emailing them to it, Kindle for PC only lets you read books from the Kindle store. Magazines, Newspapers, and Blogs, all available by subscription on the Kindle device, are not available on the PC (though this is technically not a problem, since you can always read them for free in your browser!). It also lacks the ability to select and copy text, and it does not have an option to print ebooks either. These last limitations may be to reduce the potential of piracy, but they also reduce the functionality of the program. Hopefully Amazon will address these things in upcoming releases as well.
Amazon is well on their way to transforming themselves for a store for physical items to a digital marketplace of digital goods, and Kindle for PC is yet another sign of this. With their MP3 and Video store, game and (some) software downloads, and cloud computing services, they are definitely a leader in digital distribution. And since their digital products are available on an increasing array of devices, they can benefit from a wide potential customer base.
So what are you waiting for? Download Kindle for PC now, and experience the future of Amazon as a digital distributor. And read a good book in the process!
Edit: I reviewed Kindle for PC on a standard computer (using a keyboard + mouse), but here’s a review of how Kindle for PC worked on a HP TouchSmart tx2. Great to see it from all perspectives!
When checking for the latest updates on a Vista computer today, I was amazed to see Windows Update look almost just like Windows update in Windows 7!
Windows Update has been refreshed in Windows 7 to show you more details about available updates and clearly identify optional updates and addons. Microsoft has made a platform update for Windows Vista available that adds APIs for features such as the scenic ribbon and DirectX 11 from Windows 7 into Vista. This is exciting because it makes sure that new programs aimed at Windows 7 will still run in Windows Vista, essentially extending it’s longevity. However, this update did not include an update to Windows Update. Puzzled, I looked through the update history, and quickly found an update to Windows Update listed.
This link redirects to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949104, which says it was last revised on September 28, 2009. The update to Vista’s Windows Update, which changed it to version 7.4.7600.226. Interestingly enough, 7600 is the build number of Windows 7. While the description does not mention anything about Windows 7, it does list the following improvements that have been made to Windows Update in this update:
Improvements made to version 7.4.7600.226 of the Windows Update Agent
Improved scan times for Windows Updates.
Improved user interface for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 computers running Windows Update.
More visible and detailed description of updates.
Improvements in how users are notified about service packs.
These are definitely welcome improvements, as I had already noticed that Windows 7 seemed to check for updates much quicker than Vista did. Strangely, all Vista computers do not seem to be showing this update in Windows Update, so if you’d like to go ahead and get it, you can download the update directly at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949104. After installing the update and rebooting, you will have the new Windows Update ready for use!
Windows 7 marks the shift of desktop virtualization programs from a tool for IT pros to a standard program on every desktop. Virtualization software enables users to run additional operating systems, such as XP or Ubuntu, as a program right inside their standard desktop, which enables users to test new programs or run legacy programs in a separate OS. Microsoft has offered a free desktop virtualization solution for Windows 2000 and newer ever since 2006 with the release of Virtual PC 2003, but still it was only commonly used by IT pros and computing enthusiasts. However, with the release of Windows 7, Microsoft has made XP Mode, a virtual copy of XP running in Windows Virtual PC, a standard feature for Professional and higher editions. Additionally, Windows Virtual PC is available as a free download for users of all editions of Windows 7, and any user can add their own operating system or migrate their old computer into it for free. Finally, in the range of products that affects consumers without most knowing it, Microsoft has added hypervisor-based virtualization, Hyper-V, as a free component of Server 2008 and Server 2008 RT that can also be downloaded as a free standalone product.
While these moves are great for consumers, it has increasingly made Microsoft at odds with a company who has built their entire business around virtualization solutions: VMware. Many consumers know VMware for their Fusion software, which allows Mac users to run Windows programs seamlessly in Mac OS X. But that is far from their only product; VMware offers a wide range of desktop and server virtualization products. Most of their products cost, and are often fairly expensive; this immediately puts them at odds with their larger rival who is giving away their virtualization products for free.
However, today VMware has struck back at Microsoft with this week's release of VMware Player 3.0. Although VMware Player formerly only let users run existing virtual machines, this new release allows users to create and run their own virtual machines, just like Windows Virtual PC does. VMware Player also supports video acceleration, including Aero desktop effects, inside virtual machines. And this product is totally free, which puts it in the same market as Microsoft's Virtual PC.
It also puts VMware in closer competition with Sun's VirtualBox, another free desktop virtualization offering which works on Windows and Mac OS X. VirtualBox, while lacking the polish of their competition, offers advanced features such as Remote Desktop Protocol and snapshots of the virtual machine.
This competition has heated up over the past couple years, and now that consumers are starting to use virtualization on a daily basis, it only appears that the competition will increase. So while Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, and Apple compete in the Browser Wars 2.0, a new tech war is brewing. Consumers have benefited greatly from the competition in web browsers, as companies have worked harder to make their browsers faster, stable, and user-friendly. It will be exciting to see what the competition in virtualization does to this exciting new branch of software!
While adding a new account to my Hotmail account this morning, I noticed something new in the address bar ... Hotmail was using a favicon that looked just like Windows Live Mail desktop's icon!
The main Hotmail inbox page still has the old XP-style Windows logo as its favicon, but it's interesting to see the new Live Mail icon in the settings pages. Could this point towards changes in preparation for Windows Live Wave 4? If so, can someone please tell Microsoft that I'd really like Hotmail to group messages by conversation like Outlook 2010 does? I know Outlook + Hotmail = Better Together, but I'd really like that feature in Hotmail (and in Live Mail desktop too, by the way :) ).
I haven't been able to post much here lately, but I've still been busy writing ... in fact, I've been writing more than ever! I have been writing articles for Digital Inspirations for over a month now, and it has been great. A number of my articles have been published, which I will list below, and I am also now making a new sidebar listing of my articles at Digital Inspirations. Hope you find these articles helpful, informative, and enjoyable, and keep looking for interesting content both here at Digital Inspirations!
Microsoft’s stated goal of introducing the Ribbon interface in Office 2007 was to “make it easier for people to find and use the full range of features these applications provide.” As more features were added to Microsoft Office over the years, fewer users noticed the new features because they were hidden in numerous menus, toolbars, and side panes. The Office product team tried to combat this problem by designing a user interface that eliminated complexity, enhanced productivity, and made users aware of all the features in their programs.
With the introduction of Windows 7, Microsoft has now made the Ribbon interface a standard framework in Windows. It is included in Windows 7, and will be delivered as an update to Windows Vista as well. This opens the ribbon up to any developer who wants to develop a rich, modern program for Windows. Microsoft has decided to convert two of Windows 7’s bundled apps, WordPad and Paint, to the Ribbon interface, and has also converted Movie Maker into Live Movie Maker which uses the Ribbon interface as well.
In a simple program like Paint, the Ribbon at first glance seems like overkill, and it seems like traditional toolbars could be plenty for its needs. I love the look of the Ribbon, and so was excited to get to use it in Paint, but didn’t expect it to be any more useful for me than previous versions. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found a tool in Paint that I had never discovered: a tool that would crop to your selection.
[caption id="attachment_169" align="alignright" width="300" caption="With the Ribbon, the crop tool is obvious and accessible."][/caption]
I had always hated that when you insert a picture into paint, the canvas is usually too large. My solution had always been to manually go to change the size of the canvas, but a dedicated crop tool is much simpler: 1 click and it’s done. After discovering this tool in Windows 7, I went back to Vista and checked; the crop tool was actually added to Windows Paint in Vista! I had used it for the past couple years and had never found this new feature, but the ribbon brought it front and center to my attention. This simple example shows how the ribbon interface opens up the full potential of applications to the users by showing them features that were previously hidden.
[caption id="attachment_168" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Although the crop tool was added to Paint in Windows Vista, it was hidden in a menu and thus when undiscovered."][/caption]
Have you ever needed to rearrange the pages in a PDF file before, but didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars for Adobe Acrobat? This quick and easy method of rearranging pages in a PDF will let you do this for free right on your desktop in seconds!
Tip: Using a Mac? The build-in PDF reader, Preview, lets you rearrange pages too. Just open your PDF, drag the pages in the sidebar to the order you want, and close the window to save it.
First, install Adobe reader and PrimoPDF if you do not already have them installed. Adobe reader is a free program for viewing PDF files, and you can download it at http://get.adobe.com/reader/. PrimoPDF is a free PDF creator that lets you print any file on your computer as a PDF, and you can download it for free at http://www.primopdf.com/.
Next, open the PDF file you wish to work on. Note the page numbers of the pages you wish to rearrange. In the example image below, the pages should be in the order 1,3,2 to be in the correct order.
Now, click File, then Print, and select PrimoPDF as the printer. Select the Pages bullet under "Print Range" and type the number pages in the order you wish them to be. Make sure not to forget any pages. In the example image on the right, I put in "1,3,2" to print the pages in the correct order.
PrimoPDF will then open a dialog; just put in the file name you want for the PDF with the pages in the correct order and click "Create PDF."
Now you can open your new PDF, and the pages should be in the correct order. Our example document can be seen completed below. If any of the pages are still in the wrong order, go back to step 3 and make sure to put the page numbers in the order you want them to appear.
PDF files are the de-facto standard for document sharing, especially over the internet, as you can be certain that a PDF from your computer will look the same on another computer anywhere around the world. From newsletters to tax forms, PDFs are used everyday, and sometimes it is very convenient and indeed needful to edit or even create these files. Microsoft Office 2007 added the ability to save files as PDF, and this greatly expanded the amount of people worldwide that were able to save their documents as a PDF easily and cheaply. However, most computer users didn’t have a convenient and cheap way to edit these or other PDF files, as Adobe Acrobat, one of the few programs that can edit and create PDFs, has a suggested retail price of $299!
Enter Nitro PDF’s products. As the main competitor to Adobe’s Acrobat products, the Nitro PDF company has a large portfolio of free products and services for creating and editing PDF files in addition to for-pay PDF products. I first became acquainted with Nitro PDF products when I was looking for a way to print files as PDF from any program for free. After trying out several PDF printers I found online, I was generally unimpressed with the quality of the files they produced and the speed and usability of the programs. I then discovered PrimoPDF, a free PDF printer made by Nitro PDF. This excellent little utility creates picture-perfect PDF files from any program you can print from, and it even leaves the text in documents selectable so you can copy the text out of the PDF file. PrimoPDF allows you to adjust the image quality depending on your intended use for the files, and even allows you to add security to the PDF so a password is required to open it. This week I even found another use for PrimoPDF: rearranging pages in a PDF! I had a newsletter that was formatted for printing, so the pages weren’t in the correct order for reading on a screen. I finally came up with a solution to rearrange the pages for free on my desktop. After opening the PDF in Adobe Reader, I proceeded to print it as a PDF through PrimoPDF, and selected the option to print only the selected pages. In the selected pages box, I typed the page numbers in the order I wanted them to be printed in. After clicking print, I had a perfect PDF that was now in the correct page order … without having to buy Adobe Acrobat!
Nitro PDF also offers several very good online PDF tools. My favorite is PDF to Word, which converts a PDF file you upload into a word document (your choice of .doc or .rtf format; hopefully they’ll add .docx in the near future), and the final converted document is then emailed back to you. This has been very helpful for me with the newsletter I have been working on, because when I copy text from the original PDF it maintains hard returns at the end of each printed line. Not Nitro PDF’s conversion; the .doc file it gave me let me select a paragraph, and then paste it into another document without all the hard returns at the end of each line! That is a lot easier than doing a Find and Replace, removing all the returns, and then adding them back at real paragraph breaks.
In addition to these offerings, Nitro PDF also offers a PDF to Excel convertor, a PDF downloader addon for Firefox, PrimoOnline which lets create a PDF online just like PrimoPDF printer lets you create PDFs locally, and PDF Hammer which lets you combine and rearrange pages in PDFs online. I have had some trouble with PDF Hammer, but I believe the issues are due to my internet connection and upload speed more than problems with PDF Hammer itself. That said, I have had no problems whatsoever with PDF to Word, even at the same time that I’m having a hard time uploading files to PDF Hammer. As I outlined above, I was able to rearrange pages with a little trick with Adobe reader and PrimoPDF, so I was still able to get the job done.
Primo PDF also makes professional desktop programs, Nitro PDF Professional and Nitro PDF Express. I haven’t used either of these, but based on my experiences with their free offerings I would expect them to be top-of-the-line in every aspect. They are also much cheaper than Adobe’s offerings, so if I ever need a more advanced PDF editor I will definitely purchase Primo PDF Pro. If I do so, I will review it here as well. But for now, enjoy the free offerings, and if you try out the pro products, let me know how they go for you!
Edit: I had written the names of their paid offerings wrong ... they are Nitro PDF Pro and Express, not Primo PDF pro and express. Its corrected now!
VMware is promoting their product with an unreleased OS ... Chrome OS !?! When I opened the link, it was quick to see that this was indeed the case. The first paragraph on the VMware player page says:
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.
, and experience the future of Amazon as a digital distributor. And read a good book in the process!
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