battery life
I’ve become a huge fan of touch computing. I believe that most things we think of as “computers” will be de-facto tablets, either in our pocket, in our hands, possibly even mounted on our wrists or forearms. I can’t wait for the iPad 5 this week (I’ll
windows
While I haven’t been unhappy with Windows Vista, it had a lot of rough edges: This is why the screenshot of the Windows 7 Calculator, although seemingly trivial, is so exciting to me. It’s evidence that Microsoft is going to pay attention to the visible parts of the
version control
When it comes to readily available, free source control, I don’t think you can do better than Subversion at the moment. I’m not necessarily advocating Subversion; there are plenty of other great source control systems out there – but few can match the ubiquity and relative simplicity of Subversion.
operating systems
David Heinemeier Hansson has a problem with Windows as a programming platform. While I can certainly understand the reasons why some people go with Linux, I have run all but dry of understanding for programmers that willfully pick Windows as their platform of choice. I know a few that are
security
In How to Clean Up a Windows Spyware Infestation, I documented how spyware can do a drive-by infection of your machine through your web browser. To be absolutely clear, I never clicked on any advertisements, or downloaded and executed any files. All I did was open a GameCopyWorld web page
windows
If you’re on the fence about the impending release of Windows Vista, I recommend trying before you buy. Every Vista DVD includes the ability to install any edition of Vista without a product key. When you install without a product key, you get an automatic 30 day evaluation period.
screencasting
If a picture is worth a thousand words, is a single screencast equal to a thousand word blog post? There’s a lot to be said for lightweight, embedded screencasts. I’m particularly fond of animated GIF screencasts for small demonstrations. You can see examples in these posts: one, two,
remote desktop
I’m with K. Scott Allen: the pervasiveness of Remote Desktop functionality in Windows has fundamentally changed the way I work. The fact that it shipped in the Windows XP box – and as a default component of all the server operating systems since Windows 2000 – has done wonders for its
indexing service
Microsoft’s ancient circa-1997 Indexing Service gets no respect. And that’s a shame, because it’s a surprisingly decent content indexing engine that supports arbitrary metadata. Sure, there may be better choices, but Indexing Service’s saving grace is that it’s completely free. It’s a default component
operating systems
As I recall, the Blue Screen of Death was introduced with Windows NT 3.1 circa 1993: A blue screen of death occurs when the kernel, or a driver running in kernel mode, encounters an error from which it cannot recover. This is usually caused by a [hardware] driver that
windows
When I see people using the default, crappy Windows ALT+TAB task switching behavior, I experience physical pain. TaskSwitchXP is completely free and so much better. It’s super small, totally elegant, lightning fast, and generally a massive improvement in task switching functionality. Friends don’t let friends suffer through
windows
We’re in the middle of an after-hours MAME arcade project at work.* As one of the final fit and finish steps, I did a bit of research on how to replace the default Windows XP boot screen with something a little more arcade-y. I came up with StarDock’s