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Posts Tagged ‘windows’

If you’ve been reading the blog lately, you know that I’m trying to bring back Valentine’s Day as a cool hip holiday. It’s not my fault; really, I’m just a sucker for a love note. The best thing about a Valentine’s Day card, to be honest, isn’t the words (they are always cheesy) – it’s the thought. With that thought in mind, we headed to the wilderness to create this card for you.

You can find behind the scenes shots on the Windows Facebook page or the whole album on our Pinterest page or on SkyDrive below.

What does a girl want? Fashionable goods. What does a girl need? Ultimate accessories. In recognition of that and an epic Christina Aguilera song (get it?), we are focusing today’s #win7tech chat on Fashion Week, Fashionable PCs, and the hottest fashion and tech accessories for Spring. Erin Flynn, the voice behind Reality Chic and a Windows Champion, will be joining #win7tech Tech Tuesday today to lend her expert fashionista advice to the conversation.

Curious about Erin? Well here are 3 things you might find interesting: she grew up in a small town like Mayberry with a Town Marshal and no … [Read More...]

Will this new class of slim, trim, relatively affordable portables be the Next Big Thing?

You’d have to actively be avoiding the tech media over the past several months not to have heard about Ultrabooks. Their coming has garnered a boatload of buzz, fueled in no small part by Intel’s $300 million fund to get hardware and software makers behind the cause.

Ultrabooks are Intel’s answer to the spread of ARM-based tablets—a way to capture the hearts and minds of the masses with an x86-based portable device (of the Intel persuasion, natch). To that end, Ultrabooks are required to meet … [Read More...]

Windows Phone has struggled to differentiate itself in the market against established rivals such as Android and iOS, but through it all Brandon Watson was the developer evangelist making sure a lack of apps was never the reason people opted for the competition. His commitment to platform has helped to inspire app development beyond Redmond’s wildest expectations, however ZDnet blogger Mary Jo Foley has just confirmed that Brandon is moving on, and being tasked with leading Amazon’s cross-platform Kindle efforts. 

So far Microsoft hasn’t named any successor for Watson, and did little more than confirm his departure. According to a … [Read More...]

Ah, February. The favorite month of florists the world over… at least anywhere Valentine’s Day is customarily celebrated with gifts of flowers. And of all flowers throughout history, the rose is the most enduring symbol of love. Sadly, although the symbol endures, a real fresh-cut rose doesn’t stay lovely for long. But the roses in our new Windows 7 theme will remain beautiful forever.

And of course love is not limited to humans. in the new Animal Affection theme we published today, affectionate couples of many species nuzzle, kiss, play, groom, and nap together in happy companionship.

The Lovebirds and … [Read More...]

SmithsonMartin Emulator DVS DJ System

DJs are pretty boring to watch. (Editor’s note: Reviewer is a DJ, so back off, trolls.) The Emulator DVS changes that. Looking like something lifted from the nightclub in Tron: Legacy, it’s a giant dashboard for selecting and mixing tracks. Position the included 2,300-lumen projector on the shelf beneath the 42-inch infrared touchscreen and hook up a laptop: The glass bursts to life with throbbing neon buttons, sliders, and knobs. And because the screen is transparent, the audience can watch as you swipe, twist, and tap to keep the beats bumping.… [Read More...]

Tablets are nifty, but for the most part, they’re built to be walled gardens; Apple is notorious for its heavy-handed curation, Microsoft plans on keeping Windows 8′s Metro-style apps close to the chest, and the hot-selling Kindle Fire is a deeply tweaked and thoroughly managed variant of Android. One Linux developer hopes to make things more customizable with Spark, a Mer/KDE Plasma Active-powered tablet that’s fully unlocked and open for tinkering.

Ars Technica pointed us towards the blog of Aaron Seigo, the brains behind the Spark. Seigo claims the €200 tablet (that’s around $260 USD) packs ” 1GHz AMLogic ARM … [Read More...]

It’s been a while since we chatted about the hottest PCs on the market and I know you all miss it. So, this week, we are just talking about the different PCs, their different shapes and their variety of features. At CES, all kinds of beautiful PCs were shown off and we took a look at a few in this video here and part 2 here. These are just a few examples of awesome Windows PCs available today. Plus, we’ll also be giving away an ASUS Zenbook UX21. It’s a sleek, sophisticated PC with loads of battery life and one … [Read More...]

In Windows 7, browsing for files from within a program can be a bit confusing. Why? Because for some reason, there are two separate menus for exactly that function, and they behave differently.

The first sort of menu looks more or less like Explorer.exe (image below). It’s got a folder view in the main part of the window, and a navigation pane on the left side that makes it quick to get where you want to go. If you frequently save to or load from a particular location, you can make sure it’s always at hand by dragging that location … [Read More...]

Are Ultrabooks tablet killers? We pose that very question on the cover of this month’s print issue. The debate rages on, but Lenovo is looking to skirt the issue with a newly unveiled offering. Rather than going the Eee Pad Transformer/Slider route and sticking a keyboard on a tablet, Lenovo instead got all bendy and twisty with the IdeaPad YOGA, a touchscreen Ultrabook with a 360 degree hinge on its lid. That little design tweak lets you use the YOGA as a tablet or a notebook. Heck, you can even give it a V-shape, stand it on its end and … [Read More...]

Being someone interested in aviation, I’m pretty excited about this: yesterday, we announced (via Major Nelson) that Microsoft Flight with be coming to PCs for free this spring! Microsoft Flight is a new game from Microsoft Game Studios that will allow people to fly over different regions around the world – complete with stunningly realistic region-specific weather patterns, foliage, terrain and landmarks. You’ll be able to choose specific aircraft to fly and fly these aircraft using highly rendered, accurate cockpits and authentic piloting procedures – or simply use your mouse and keyboard to control the plane in an exterior view. … [Read More...]

This is the year millions of owners of so-called feature phones — devices which handle little beyond voice calls, texts, and photos — will finally upgrade to true smartphones.

At least, that’s the hope of Microsoft and Nokia. The two tech giants have been floundering to get a foothold in the U.S. smartphone market ever since the iPhone launched in 2007. The two companies have partnered up to make a more cohesive play in the realm of touchscreens, apps, and streaming media, and this is their most accessible U.S.-bound device so far.

The Nokia Lumia 710 runs the latest version … [Read More...]

Whether you just built or bought a new PC, it pays to optimize your setup from the start

Nothing holds more promise than a brand-new PC. The hardware is fresh and full of potential, the OS is clean and clutter-free, and you have nothing but pure, unadulterated storage space awaiting your precious data. It’s an exciting time, indeed. But before you start dumping old files onto your new rig willy-nilly, and downloading every shiny bauble of an app that catches your eye, take some time to consider a more measured approach to moving in. After all, you only have this … [Read More...]

From afar, there’s little to distinguish the Antec P280 from such long-in-the-tooth predecessors as Antec’s P183. The steel side panels are all black, without mounting holes for additional fans or windows to provide a look inside. There’s no LED glow, either. The only exterior visual clues that reveal this to be an entirely new chassis are the front-panel connections, including two USB 3.0 connectors with an internal header, which are located above the case’s front door.

The P280′s front door doesn’t, for once, hide the power and reset switches; Antec’s engineers moved them up where they belong.

Remove the sound-dampening … [Read More...]

The jury is still out on Windows 7 tablets — and, at this point, it looks like it may never come in — but with the Series 7 Slate, Samsung at least gives this difficult niche the old college try.

Our last encounter with a Windows tablet dates back to March’s Viewsonic ViewPad 10, which disastrously attempted to combine Windows and Android in one device, dramatically failing at both. Here, Samsung is at least wise enough to pick … [Read More...]

Despite Microsoft’s apparent lack of love for Windows Home Server 2011—the company stripped Drive Extender from the final version, and good luck finding a retail Windows Home Server 2011 box in the U.S.—it’s still a great server OS for a Windows-heavy home environment. Backups are effortless, streaming is hassle-free, it’s easy to administer, and there are tons of add-ins available.

Given a choice between buying an off-the-shelf product and building one myself, I’ll opt for the build any day. And since you can’t get a retail WHS box in the U.S. anyway, I figured what the heck. I pinged Michael … [Read More...]

I’ve been waiting for the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s to come to market since early September when I first saw it during Fashion’s Night Out. To be honest, I have a rather intense love affair with the previous released version of this PC. So, I was excited to see an updated model. Upon first sight on pretty white pedestals in Saks, this new line of PC won my heart. It’s light, with long battery life and colorful. So, I was thrilled when Lenovo let me test one out.

Here are some highlights:

• Rapid charge battery – huge for me as I

… [Read More...]