iPod Touch 2G jailbreak is close!

After reading the Dev-Team blog it seems as if an ipod touch 2g jailbreak is imminent. redsn0w has been set up, and the image in the middle is a picture of the ipod touch 2g CPU (which is what was giving the dev-team problems in the first place). The hash on the top left is the most important hash file to the itouch 2g.
One of the dev-team members have commented saying that whatever they are releasing will be out, most likely, before the 18th.
Go Devteam! My iT2G will be redsn0wed as soon as you release!

Tim Sneath's Bumper List of Windows 7 Secrets

So, I was reading up on the MSDN blog, and found an article about all sorts of windows 7 tips and tricks (here: http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2009/01/12/the-bumper-list-of-windows-7-secrets.aspx) and I thought I should outline a few that stood out to me.

Windows Management. By now, you’ve probably seen that Windows 7 does a lot to make window management easier: you can “dock” a window to the left or right half of the screen by simply dragging it to the edge; similarly, you can drag the window to the top of the screen to maximize it, and double-click the window top / bottom border to maximize it vertically with the same horizontal width. What you might not know is that all these actions are also available with keyboard shortcuts:
Win+Left Arrow and Win+Right Arrow dock;
Win+Up Arrow and Win+Down Arrow maximizes and restores / minimizes;
Win+Shift+Up Arrow and Win+Shift+Down Arrow maximizes and restores the vertical size.

I think this would be very useful for people with dual monitors, I have dual monitors at my house, and after trying out these shortcuts I found that I can use them to move windows to other monitors.

Display Projection. Had enough of messing around with weird and wonderful OEM display driver utilities to get your notebook display onto an external projector? In that case, you’ll be pleased to know that projection is really quick and simple with Windows 7. Just hit Win+P, and you’ll be rewarded by the following pop-up window:
http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/tims/WindowsLiveWriter/Windows7Secrets_AC88/image_5.png

Use the arrow keys (or keep hitting Win+P) to switch to “clone”, “extend” or “external only” display settings. You can also access the application as displayswitch.exe.

If you want broader control over presentation settings, you can also press Win+X to open the Windows Mobility Center, which allows you to turn on a presentation “mode” that switches IM clients to do not disturb, disables screensavers, sets a neutral wallpaper etc. (Note that this feature is also available in Windows Vista.)

After installing the windows 7 beta this was one of the things that I noticed first. I actually stumbled upon the popup by accident while messing around in the mobility center and I thought it would be extremely useful for many users. I also like the presentation mode check box in the mobility center because you can use it to disable the screensaver in case your watching a movie or something.

Cut Out The Clutter. Working on a document in a window and want to get rid of all the extraneous background noise? Simply hit Win+Home to minimize all the non-active background windows, keeping the window you’re using in its current position. When you’re ready, simply press Win+Home again to restore the background windows to their original locations.

This, along with the Win+Space shortcut (show desktop) are very nice additions to the windows OS.

The Black Box Recorder. Every developer wishes there was a way that an end-users could quickly and simply record a repro for the problem that they’re running into that is unique to their machine. Windows 7 comes to the rescue! Part of the in-built diagnostic tools that we use internally to send feedback on the product, the Problem Steps Recorder provides a simple screen capture tool that enables you to record a series of actions. Once you hit “record”, it tracks your mouse and keyboard and captures screenshots with any comments you choose to associate alongside them. Once you stop recording, it saves the whole thing to a ZIP file, containing an HTML-based “slide show” of the steps. It’s a really neat little tool and I can’t wait for it to become ubiquitous on every desktop! The program is called psr.exe; you can also search for it from Control Panel under “Record steps to reproduce a problem”.
http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/tims/WindowsLiveWriter/Windows7Secrets_AC88/image_34.png

Websites to note

Ill be talking about these websites soon, win7 users and dell fans: take a look.
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2009/01/12/the-bumper-list-of-windows-7-secrets.aspx
http://brandonlive.com/2009/01/10/windows-7-beta-hotkey-cheat-sheet/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/sets/72157612318638931/detail/

and a bonus:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338803,00.asp

Awesome response to Windows 7

It is really awesome to see such an outstanding response to windows 7 from the community and its also amazing to see so many people o my blog!
If we can get this many people on the site every day I can promise to have at least 3 posts everyday of interesting Tech Stuff!
Heres a graph to show just how many people are on the site, and where they are from:


Here is the actual stats page:
http://whos.amung.us/stats/cw0vl09x/

Warm welcome to the 7 users from the US and the 6 from Canada!

Windows 7 Beta Keys

So, after following the guides from mydigitallife, keznews, and lifehacker, and then refreshing my browser into infinity... I finally got my windows 7 product keys (both 32 Bit and 64 bit). I figured out how to get more than just one of them, so I have a lot of extras. If anyone would like a key please just comment here and Ill send you one... Feel free to donate if you want to.

Windows 7 Beta Officially Available Today!

Today Microsoft has made the Windows 7 Beta Officially available for anyone to download. You can watch LifeHackers coverage of the availablity here as they will be covering the status of product keys. Microsoft is working on getting their servers back up and running (they hadn't expected such a huge flow of users to their site). Microsoft has yet to make available the product keys for the beta, but you can still download the beta and use it for 30 days without a Key.
Links to download the beta are below (note that the links dont work in chrome)
Windows 7 Beta - x86 (32 bit)
Windows 7 Beta - x64 (64 bit)

What Microsoft Forgot to Mention About Vista

So, just as New Years came and left, so will Windows Vista upon the release of Windows 7 later this year and the upcomming beta release tomorrow. Nothing could make the upgrade a little easier for users to deal with than the knowledge that Microsoft (along with many major computer manufacturers) kinda cheated a little bit when they sold Vista.
After reading an article on Lifehacker about Windows 7's hardware requirements I found an interesting piece of information on Microsoft.com:

While all editions of Windows Vista can support multiple core CPUs, only Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support dual processors.

Although this will not affect the majority of Windows Users, I found it interesting and thought I'd share it.

Hello Jody

Dev Team Blog

Youtube video:

Subscribenrox653
January 03, 2009

Links:
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/68156...
http://digg.com/apple/Yellowsn0w_is_F...

Contact a lawyer, do whatever, just spread the word of Jody Sanders (iPhone Unlock UK). Stealing copyrighted code intended for free purposes is illegal anywhere you go, and the Dev Team can sue them at any time.

So, just how good is Windows 7?

You may be wondering how good Windows 7 actually is in regards to performance... You know, because it has so many new features that it must have dropped performance again like vista did right? I mean, how could a new taskbar, nicer programs (like paint and wordpad), multi-touch, kernel improvements, processing improvements, tweaked Explorer, windows solution center, and homegroups (shall I continue?) really not slow down the machine?
KezNews had the same question, and wanted to compare windows 7 to Vista Sp2 and XP Sp3.
They put each version of windows to the following tests:

1. Install OS - Time it takes to install the OS
2. Boot up - Average boot time to usable desktop
3. Shut down - Average shut down time
4. Move 100MB files - Move 100MB of JPEG files from one hard drive to another
5. Move 2.5GB files - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from one hard drive to another
6. Network transfer 100MB files - Move 100MB of JPEG files from test machine to NAS device
7. Network transfer 2.5GB files - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from test machine to NAS device
8. Move 100MB files under load - Move 100MB of JPEG files from one hard drive to another while ripping DVD to .ISO file
9. Move 2.5GB files under load - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from one hard drive to another while ripping DVD to .ISO file
10. Network transfer 100MB files under load - Move 100MB of JPEG files from test machine to NAS device while ripping DVD to .ISO file
11. Network transfer 2.5GB files under load - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from test machine to NAS device while ripping DVD to .ISO file
12. Compress 100MB files - Using built-in ZIP compression
13. Compress 1GB files - Using built-in ZIP compression
14. Extract 100MB files - Using built-in ZIP compression
15. Extract 1GB files - Using built-in ZIP compression
16. Install Office 2007 - Ultimate version, from DVD
17. Open 10 page Word doc - Text only
18. Open 100 page Word doc - Text and images only
19. Open simple Excel doc - Basic formatting
20. Open complex Excel doc - Including formula and charts
21. Burn DVD - Win 7 beta 1 .ISO to disc using CDBurnerXP
22. Open 10 page PDF - Text only, using latest Adobe Reader 8
23. Open 100 page PDF - Text and images, using latest Adobe Reader 8

and got the following results:



The lower the number, the better the OS.
Obviously, Windows 7 blew the other OS's away! It has all of the performance gains, and all of the visual improvements that vista and XP had + more.
I have the windows 7 beta leak installed on my vaio and Ill be testing it out and I'll post about it in a few days.

btw... if you wanted to read up on that list of features... THIS PAGE has a nice list put together about half way through.

Windows 7 Review

Read this article on keznews and thought it would be good to post up here. Its incredibly acurate but I disagree on the taskbar section... I think the new taskbar is awesome.

I’ve now had my hands on Windows 7 beta 1 build 6.1.7000.0.081212-1400 (the build that is widely expected to be made available to beta testers by Microsoft early in January) and have had some time to compose my thoughts and feelings about this latest release.

Beta 1 is very similar to M3 builds
The first thing that’s striking about Windows 7 beta 1 is how similar it is to the M3 builds that I’ve been using since October. In fact, put builds 6801 and 7000 beta 1 side-by-side and you might be hard pressed to spot the difference (especially if you activated the Blue Badge features). This means that if you’ve been following Windows 7 builds then when you get your hands on the beta you’ll be pretty familiar with the beta. The flip-side is that I’ve got fewer new things to show you!

It’s unusual not to be faced with heaps of new features with each build - it’s almost as though Microsoft had a plan for Windows 7 right from the start, baked these features into the early M3 build and have since been working on refining these features. This is an interesting approach that seems to have resulted in the best beta build of an OS from Microsoft that I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a LOT of beta builds!). Wow!

Installation
Installing Windows 7 beta 1 is faster and simpler than installing Windows Vista or Windows XP on a system.

There are fewer steps to work through, the installation is overall much faster than for earlier Microsoft operating systems (I can get Windows 7 onto most systems in about 25 minutes, on a powerful system the install process will take less than 20 minutes), and there are fewer obstacles between the user and the OS once it’s installed (for example, gone is that annoying post-install performance test).

New taskbar
Oddly enough, the first thing that you’re likely to notice about Windows 7 is also the bit that I like the least. The new revamped taskbar is visually very interesting (and certainly a lot easier to use at higher screen resolutions that the Vista or XP taskbar), but it tries to do too much and as such comes across as kludgey and counter-intuitive. One failure is that it’s hard to tell the difference between apps that are running and shortcuts that have been pinned to the taskbar. It also incorporates the new Jump Lists feature which acts as a context-sensitive menu for applications. Problem is that there’s very little rhyme or reason to what to expect from Jump Lists, making them awkward to use in the real world.

Aero Snap
Aero Snap is a simple little feature that I find myself using all the time. This is a gestures driven method of organizing Windows. Drag a window to the top of the screen and the app is maximized. Drag it to the side and you get it to tile to one half of the screen. Drag the app away from the top of the screen to restore it. It’s a very handy feature indeed, especially for people who work with multiple applications.

Aero Peek
Ever wanted to see what was on your desktop without minimizing all your applications? Aero Peek is the feature for you. Mouse over the small area on the right-hand side of the taskbar and you get a glimpse of what’s on your desktop, allowing you to see shortcuts and gadgets. Aero Peek is of limited usefulness though since you can’t interact with anything on the desktop because as soon as you move the mouse off the Peek spot the applications all return.

Personalizations
If you like to customize your Windows experience then you’ll appreciate some of these changes. Not only does Windows 7 come with several ready-made themes that include specific background images, colors, sounds and screensavers, there are also themes that make use of a desktop slideshow to continually change the desktop image.