Sorry folks for such a long gap, i went for a job interview ,while returning i got all soaked in monsoon rain, had a hell of viral, i just felf better so i though its about time to get back here also. Getting back to business:- With so many MS

Windows 7 user comments and news reaching my ears, i just could not control my self from test-driving it my self, in the start i also thought M$ claims that Windows 7 can jump start in 1GB Memory and around 2 Ghz of processor with a good graphics card. so i thought of testing it on my lappy.

So i tested M$ Windows 7 on this Machine.

• 14.1″ WXGA Screen
  

  System Properties

• Nvidia Geforce 6150 GO
• Nvidia Chipset (I guess MCP 51 or something like that)
• AMD Turion MK-36 (2 Ghz Processor [SINGLE CORE])
• 512 MB x 2 [1 GB] DDR2 RAM

Here by in short i am using Compaq Presario v3225 AU (V3000 Series) Laptop.

Installation

The installation is just as similar to M$ Windows Vista. It took me about 30 mins to install it, without any hassles.

The First Run

At first i thought it was going to take Vista like painful bootup time, but it didn’t. As i saw the boot screen is something which Microsoft never attempted before, for this they thought really out of the BOX. at first when the boot screen

appears it says “Starting Windows”. after a moment 4 dots come flying from background, and form the windows logo, it almost appears that it is flaming.

Logon

Windows 7 logon is comparatively faster than its predecessor, M$ has skipped the shiny windows logo before the logon screen, rest every thing seems similar to what Windows Vista was.

Desktop

Icon Size: Similar to Windows Vista, if you are going to look for the famous sidebar, its better don’t; cuz you will not find any search bar in this version, instead M$ decided to remove sidebar, and put gadgets in the desktop. Taskbar has a drastic change, if we hover mouse pointer over the start button it shines as if aura lights were coming out of it. Instead of tabs of programs running, it now has a button just containing a icon. the fixed icon on the taskbar also serve as quicklaunch and tab buttons, by default prefixed buttons are:

Internet Explorer 8, Windows Explorer, Windows Media Player 12. On the other hand, the notification area has been somewhat changed, clocked reformatted and lastly shw desktop button(which is very slim button.), Windows media player toolbar has been removed.

Effects

It also has Aero effects, 3d Flip, but effects have been put to use in this version of windows, they can be seen in action for minimize, maximize,restore actions. visual preview can be used to control windows media player now.

Start Menu

It is somewhat as same as windows Vista but with minor changes and improvements.

Performance and handling

It has been improved very drastically, programs are now much more dependable, it does not have requirements problems, and is very comfortable to work on. I tried to launch Corel Draw x4, Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver CD3 and 5 instances of firefox at same time while using Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional on 1GB of Memory without much of a problem. After that i thought to put it to real test, i decided to play HD 1080 Movie on it. It did play the movie but with a little hesitations. Directx 11 handles the needs of most extreme gamers, to be honest, i think after Windows XP Windows 7 has much-much better game support.

Drivers

Windows Vista Drivers can work, some of the drivers can create problems but that can be overcome’d with. So no big

issues.

Release

Windows 7 is set to be released around October 22, 2009.

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Scour is an interesting search engine that not only provides good search results but also pays it’s user for searching. Earlier known as Aftervote.com, Scour’s purpose is to bridge the gap between searchers and relevant results. So, it pulls relevant results from the three major search engine, Google, Yahoo and MSN and enables it’s members to vote and comment for the search results. These votes determines the ranking of websites in Scour’s search results page and provides the most relevant results as efficiently as possible.

Scour provides a good platform for the

users to vote and comment on relevancy of search results. This also helps

users in connecting with one another, while creating a true social search community. This will definitely help them to meet the needs of today’s internet searchers.

How it Works?

The idea is based on a simple principle: “Search socially and get the most from your favorite search engine!”

• Hit the link below to join for free and we will both get points. You get 25% of the points your friends make. Please do not misunderstand, I will be rewarded with 25% of the points you will be earning. You will not lose 25% of your points. http://scour.com/invite/matrix4495
• After you join, start searching and you will get results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN on one page. This is really cool!
• You earn the following number of points for each action: 1=Search, 2=Vote, 3=Comment
• When you have earned enough points you can redeem them for Visa gift cards sent directly to you. Excellent, right?

I know you will like it. Join my search for blogging http://scour.com/invite/matrix4495

It turns out that all those rumors of an operating system from Google to go against Windows have managed to come true. Having released the Google Chrome browser just nine months ago, it was a natural step in the evolution of the Mountain View-based company to dig and bury itself deeper on the desktop, going beyond producing a competitor for Internet Explorer, to providing a self-sufficient standalone equivalent to the IE and Windows bundle. And ultimately to offer a platform designed to rival Windows. For this, Google has turned to the all-time anti-Windows favorite platform, Linux. At the same time, the search giant’s focus with the new OS will be its Chrome browser. The result? Google Chrome Operating System (Google Chrome OS), planned for availability in 2010.

But while it is increasing its foothold into what is traditionally Microsoft territory, anchoring itself deeper on the desktop, Google argues that it is doing it in order to open up the Cloud to end users. Slapping traditional operating systems, Google revealed that the platforms in existence were all initially adepts of a web-less environment, and the result of desktop-centric designs. This is why the Mountain View company is taking a shot at re-thinking what operating systems are. The Google Chrome Operating System is in this regard what Google referred to as the natural extension of Google Chrome.

Sundar Pichai, VP, Product Management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, explained that Google Chrome OS was catalyzed

by feedback from customers. “We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files,” Pichai and Upson stated.

The promise with Google Chrome OS is that the focus will be on delivering a platform that will integrate seamlessly with hardware and software, requiring minimal user intervention when it comes down to the setting up and updating processes. Users “don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet,” Pichai and Upson revealed.

Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Users should not expect a mammoth Windows-level operating system from Google. Instead, Chrome OS will be a lightweight operating system that, just as the Chrome browser, is an open-source project. The company revealed that it was already negotiating with original equipment manufacturers to have Chrome OS pre-installed on netbooks in the second half of 2010. In this regard, Google promised that, by the end of 2009, it would provide access to the source code of Chrome OS, and that it would approach the open-source community to debut work on the project.

By tailoring Chrome to netbooks, Google is going against Microsoft. The Redmond company currently dominates the netbook market. At the start of June 2009, data provided by NPD revealed that 98% of all the “small notebook PCs” (netbooks) sold via retail channels in the US were pre-installed with Windows (with Windows XP being the favorite OS). But unlike the open-source community, Google has the necessary financial resources and connections to steal territory away from Microsoft.

“Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work,” Pichai and Upson added.

Google Chrome OS will be tailored to work with both x86 processors but also ARM CPUs. The Mountain View search giant explained the software architecture of the new platform as “Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.” In this regard, Google already benefits from a mature and fully evolved platform development ecosystem. The company explained that applications wouldn’t be developed for the Google Chrome OS but for the Internet. Chrome OS will do nothing more than run the Chrome browser, which in its turn will run Cloud applications.

“All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform,” Pichai and Upson promised.

One of the key market pillars for Google’s new Chrome OS is fact that it is targeting the netbook market. It’s a market that is growing rapidly with one forecast pegging 2009 growth of nearly 70 percent in 2009.

While Linux has been a player in the netbook market since the beginning, NPD Group recently reported that Microsoft Windows now represents 96 percent of the market. Amidst that backdrop, what will take for Chrome OS and other Linux vendors to capture share in the netbook market?

“Linux will naturally capture more share on netbooks as Microsoft economics prove unrealistic for this market,” Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs at the Linux Foundation told InternetNews.com. “Microsoft as it existed for the past 20 years does not fit into a world of free carrier-backed netbooks and an Internet OS.”

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) currently makes Window XP available to netbook vendors and is currently working on a version of Windows 7 for netbooks. Microsoft told InternetNews.com earlier this year that Windows on Notebook PCs in the U.S have gone from under 10 percent in unit sales during the first half of 2008 to 96 percent as of February 2009.

The current market share for Windows on netbooks does not deter Linux backers. McPherson noted that the industry is moving into a services-based PC model and that will put margin pressure on the OS side of netbook vendors. It’s a margin pressure that in her view, does not favor Microsoft.

“But make no mistake: Microsoft obviously has a lot of resources and a huge monopoly advantage,” McPherson said. “They can adjust to the new model but it will be painful for their margins. We feel Linux will continue to make strides against Windows during this shift to a new PC model.”

Novell and its SUSE Linux distribution are among the Linux vendors currently actively engaged in the netbook market. The key for Linux netbook growth, according to Novell’s openSUSE’s Community Manager Joe Brockmeier, is community and corporate cooperation.

“What we need in large part to capture more share is marketing and partnerships with the OEMs that sell netbooks,” Brockmeier told InternetNews.com. “This is something that vendors like Intel and Novell can help with, and something that the community at large isn’t well-suited to handle.”

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is one of the lead backers of the Moblin mobile Linux operating system. Novell has partnerships with Lenovo for netbooks, while Ubuntu has initiatives in place with Dell. Google has already announced that they are working with Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Acer and Lenovo for Chrome OS.

“On the community side, we need active development focused on netbooks and netbook-friendly applications,” Brockmeier said. “Work that reduces boot times, and work that helps tailor existing applications for netbooks and also creates new applications that people want on netbooks for Linux.”

Though Windows currently dominates the netbook space, Linux vendor Ubuntu is optimistic about their chances to gain significant share. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth told InternetNews.com earlier this year that he sees Windows 7 as an opportunity for Linux growth.

It’s a sentiment that is now being echoed by others on Shuttleworth’s team. Gerry Carr, platform marketing manager at Canonical (Canonical is the lead commercial sponsor of Ubuntu) told InternetNews.com that the fact that Ubuntu is shipping good numbers and working well with key partners gives them confidence.

Carr did not elaborate on the numbers that are being shipped. Ubuntu does have a netbook specific edition of its Linux distribution called the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which is freely available.

“Android, Chrome, Moblin, Ubuntu Netbook Remix all see the value in a Linux strategy,” Carr said. “There is unprecedented excitement and investment in the market and netbook and notebook buyers are going to see choice and value on the software side they have not seen for some time. What do we need to do? Keep building better product, share learning and stay focused.”

1. Security – Linux is Open Source Software, while Windows is not. The simplest benefits of Open Source Code to demonstrate are increased security, reliability and functionality; because users of Open Source are readily able to identify and correct problems with the programs and to submit their own enhancements for incorporation into the program. Closed Source systems enjoy none of those benefits.
2. Scalability – Systems implemented under Linux can be cloned limitless times without paying additional software licensing fees – With Windows, you pay for each installation/workstation/server/cpu.
3. Power – Linux is made with the Unix design philosophy, which dictates that system tools are small and highly specialized. The result is an incredibly powerful and reliable system, limited in capability only by the user’s imagination and ability to integrate the Unix utilities. The Windows philosophy is to create unwieldy swiss army knives, limited in capability by how many features the user purchased on their particular knife. Diminished reliability is arguably a side effect of increased complexity. Thus with Windows, the case is often that you have tools that ALMOST do what you want them to, if they didn’t crash.
4. Reliability – The architecture of Linux is superior to Windows because critical operation system functions are implemented in such a way that buggy programs can’t cause the computer to become unstable and crash. In fairness, though not quite as robust as Linux, Windows 2000 and Windows XP are much improved over Windows 9x and Windows Millenium Edition.
5. Advanced Capabilities – In addition to the system utility tools from the Unix world, Linux usually comes with the Apache Webserver, an email server, router/firewall capabilities and SQL databases. These are extras costing up to thousands of dollars on Windows. There IS free software to do these jobs on Windows, but it has mostly been adapted from Linux and loses some functionality when ported to Windows.
6. Compatibility – Linux is POSIX Compliant which means that applications developed for Linux can be operated on other POSIX compliant Unix derivatives with a minimum of reworking.
7. Support – For persons not familiar with the Open Source Community, the quality of free technical support on the internet may come as a shock. Sometimes knowing enough to ask the right questions can be a problem, but overall the best and the brightest are there to assist you at no charge when you run into problems that can’t be solved by reading the documentation included with Linux. With Windows or other commercial software, your manufacturer support is only free for a limited time and is often of little value anyways.
8. Not Single Source Software – Linux is distributed by several companies, giving consumers to pick and choose the flavor that best suits their needs. Windows is the product of a single company, Microsoft Corporation. Windows users have no choice but to accept what Microsoft offers.
9. Rate of Advancement – Linux has and will continue to advance at a rate impossible for a close development project such as Microsoft Windows to sustain. A few factors driving this rate of progress are (in no particular order): the number of active developers; quantity and quality of feedback from the field; short development cycle from development team to the end user; absence of corporate “meddling” in the design process; independently developed open source subsystems frequently incorporated into Linux, giving it quantum advances in a short time.
10. Cost – That Linux is FREE deserves honorable mention and a bit of explanation. You can package and sell Linux for money. The competing Linux distributions all provide slightly different feature sets beyond the core system, including canned e-commerce solutions, printed manuals and phone support options. There is no rule that says you can’t make money distributing Linux. For those who choose to download and install free distributions from the Internet, Linux is truely free. Some cynics have proclaimed, “Sure Linux is free now, but the Linux People will start charging for it once it catches on!”. That statment is completely false. No single person or organization controls Linux, so that will never happen. In the unlikely case that Linus Torvalds (the author of Linux) adds some proprietary code and proclaims that all future releases will be $99.99USD, someone will simply take the latest “free” version and possibly rename it to Spin-UX. Then all the volunteer developers and contributors will jump on that bandwagon. Spin-UX will diverge from its Linux roots, over time becoming better supported and more advanced, rendering its ancestor obsolete, except possibly for purposes specifically addressed by that hypothetical proprietary added code. Furthermore Linux is covered by the Gnu Public License, stating that it and all derivative works must be distributed with the source code. This makes it extremely unlikely that anyone will wield monopolistic power in the Linux Sector.