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Posts Tagged ‘windows’

Living in Seattle, we see a lot of gray- gray sky, gray clothes, gray weather. So, they last thing we want to have overwhelming our inboxes is graymail. For those of you who don’t know, graymail is the mail that lives between spam and personal mail. It’s the catalogues you’ve signed up for, the school PTA letters, or the coupon buster newsletter. You want to get it; you just don’t want to read it all.

Hotmail has made it a personal mission to stay on top of graymail and to help you find ways to sort, filter and delete the … [Read More...]

Have you ever had to switch data from an old to a new PC? It’s time consuming, often frustrating and can take all the fun out of having a brand new PC to play with. Luckily I have a smart friend who switches my files for me. If you aren’t graced with a bona-fide tech genius in your midst, you’re in luck. You have Best Buy and the Geek Squad.

For the month of February, Best Buy is offering free data transfer with the purchase of any laptop from the exclusive Microsoft Premium Collection. This pretty much means that you … [Read More...]

Greetings from Microsoft’s campus here in Redmond, WA. My name is Leigha Anderson and this is my first blog post on the Windows Experience Blog. Here Microsoft, I work on the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) Product Marketing Team where I look after anything relating to Small and Medium Business. I joined Microsoft in July fresh out of college and I am so excited about the opportunity to share my experiences at Microsoft and provide some personal insight about being young and working in the crazy world of technology. I am blogging because I hope to bring a different perspective about … [Read More...]

Here comes Fat Tuesday! It’s time to set a party mood with the new Masquerade theme, which features elegant and mysterious masks for celebrating Mardi Gras and Carnival.

In other current events, the wacky new Xbox Live game for Windows Phone, Chickens Can’t Fly, was just released. This new Windows 7 theme features colorful artwork from the game, along with fun chicken-clucking sound-effects.

Switching gears to a more serene and serious frame of mind, the rest of our new themes celebrate the beauty of widely varied landscapes.

Late last summer, my colleague Christian Kirchesch in Munich organized a German photography … [Read More...]

As an illustrator who works in both paper and digital media, I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on the Wacom Inkling ever since it was first announced. A physical pen that tracks your drawings and digitizes them on the fly? Can you say “dream tool?”

The Inkling is a two-part gadget, a pen and a receiver. As you draw with the pen, the receiver stays clamped to the top of your notebook where it … [Read More...]

If you’re still making excuses about why you aren’t running local data back-ups, this drive is prepared to shoot down every one of your tepid arguments.

With the My Book Live Duo, Western Digital updates its venerable line of network-attached storage devices. The biggest upgrade is in the “Duo” part of the name: This is WD’s first dual-drive NAS, and the addition of RAID means your data should be safe from anything short of a house-frying power surge, or a disaster that levels your entire home.

4TB of total storage is included (a 6TB version is coming), giving you 2TB … [Read More...]

If you’re still making excuses about why you aren’t running local data back-ups, this drive is prepared to shoot down every one of your tepid arguments.

With the My Book Live Duo, Western Digital updates its venerable line of network-attached storage devices. The biggest upgrade is in the “Duo” part of the name: This is WD’s first dual-drive NAS, and the addition of RAID means your data should be safe from anything short of a house-frying power surge, or a disaster that levels your entire home.

4TB of total storage is included (a 6TB version is coming), giving you 2TB … [Read More...]

Are you searching for a last minute gift for your special someone this Valentine’s Day? Well lucky for you, we have a few great ideas courtesy of the folks who work in Microsoft Hardware. I asked them for a Valentine’s Day song and dance number, but alas they were too busy winning awards like the I4U Editor’s Choice Award, the 2011 Red Dot Award in product design and the PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award.

Last week, I recommended the Sangria Red Arc Touch Mouse as a great gift for Valentine’s Day. It really is, as long as she isn’t expecting … [Read More...]

I love the stories you have all shared during this week’s Valentine’s Day contest post. From the funny nicknames, to the sweet love you have for grandparents and children, your comments have made me laugh and sigh out loud. It’s likely because I’m a bit of a sucker, but I’m willing to admit it. This week’s Tech Tuesday Live Twitter Chat is going to be all about Valentine’s Day, too.

We are going to talk about:

• Simple ways to stay in touch with your family using Windows Live Messenger, Skype, and more.
• Fast photo fixes with Windows Live Photo Gallery

… [Read More...]

I’ve got to admit a secret to you. I’m a big sucker for Valentine’s Day. I know it’s trite and confectionary in nature. I know that loving Valentine’s Day is not supposed to be hip. Still, isn’t there something absolutely lovely about a day where you are just supposed to love everything, wear pink and send each other handwritten notes? I want to bring Valentine’s Day – the fun, whimsical, cute one- back.

To start off we have a few ideas for the technology lover that you love. You know they don’t want roses, chocolates or the latest Nicholas Sparks … [Read More...]

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...]