Microsoft has all but admitted that Windows Vista was a flop. So why not start using its successor right now? You can, simply by downloading the free release candidate of Windows 7 (www.microsoft.com/Windows/Windows-7/download.aspx). Fully functioning, robust and stable, Windows 7 RC (release candidate) has been available for a week now, and its usage has already jumped 22 percent, according to Microsoft.
The headline features of Windows 7 — greater compatibility, speed, interface enhancements and less annoyance from user account control — are really designed to say to users: “We know Vista disappointed you; this version will not.” But Microsoft has done more than just make amends with the forthcoming Windows. It has also slipped in a lot of useful enhancements and features. Here are a few.
• Sticky notes
You work all day at the computer, and you need somewhere to place sticky notes to remind yourself to pick up some milk, make a doctor’s appointment, or call the plumber, right? In the past, you probably stuck such notes on your computer monitor — or put them on scraps of paper scattered around your desk. Thanks to the new Windows 7 applet called Sticky Notes, you can get rid of all of those annoying pieces of paper.
Sticky Notes are just what they sound like: little virtual notes that resemble real-world sticky notes. These, however, you can place anywhere on your Windows desktop. And they stay stuck to the desktop for as long you want — even after rebooting.
The default sticky note is yellow — but you can change the color simply by right-clicking your sticky note.
• Snipping Tool
Another nifty little Windows 7 tool that falls into the category of “why didn’t they think of this earlier” is called Snipping Tool. Available directly from the Start menu, Snipping Tool allows you to select and capture anything that’s displayed on your monitor and either save it as a graphics file or paste it into an e-mail message, document, or graphics program.
To do this previously, you would have had to capture an entire screen or window and then switch to a paint program to crop the image, copy it to the clipboard, and then move it to its destination. Snipping Tool boils all of that down to three clicks: one to open the tool, one to select the region, and another to press Ctrl-C. Capturing part of your screen doesn’t get any easier.
Snipping Tool even comes with a pen tool that allows you to annotate or mark up what you’ve captured, as well as a highlighter that makes it easy to highlight text in a capture. A one-click
e-mail toolbar button moves the captured image and any annotation to your default e-mail program, ready to send off to a friend or colleague.
• Libraries
In previous versions of Windows, Microsoft pretty much dictated to you where your files could be stored — under My Documents, My Music, My Videos, and so on. While it’s true that you could choose your own locations with individual applications, there were enough areas of the operating system that kept pointing back to those default locations that you probably eventually just gave up and accepted the locations Microsoft chose for you.
The new Libraries feature goes some way to putting you back in control. When you open the Windows Explorer file manager — or click Computer from the Start menu — you’ll see the Libraries category listed to the left, with initial libraries called Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos already created.
Libraries in Windows 7 are actually pointers to one or more locations on your hard drive where documents of a certain type are stored. The Documents library, for example, can contain pointers to the location where you keep your Word documents, your Excel spreadsheets and your PowerPoint presentations. The library concept is quite powerful because with one click you can actually see or search through documents that are in fact stored in many different locations.
Right-clicking a library name and selecting Properties brings up a dialog box that allows you to establish the locations to which that library points. The default library names that Microsoft supplies are fully configurable — or deleteable.
• Homegroup
Homegroup is another new concept in Windows 7, and it’s designed to make the process of sharing files, music, videos, pictures and printers on a home network much easier than before.
The process is simple. Click the word Homegroup in Windows Explorer — or in Computer from the Start menu — and indicate which resources you’d like to make available to others. Once your homegroup is created, others within your home can access your resources simply by clicking the word ‘homegroup’ as you did. Homegroup is only available on Windows 7 computers, and it’s only available on home networks.
• No nags
If Vista users had one message to deliver to Microsoft, it was probably “stop bugging me!” Vista drove people crazy at almost every turn, alerting them when their antivirus software was out of date or not installed, when a network was found or lost, when a firewall was not configured, when there was something awry with security settings, when a backup had not been configured, and of course whenever a file was to be deleted or a program installed. It’s no wonder that most companies still use XP.
With Windows 7, you can get rid of all of those types of nagging messages with a few clicks. Stop in at the new Change Action Center Settings screen, take a look at all of the ways that Windows has to annoy you, and turn everything off. Voila! No more nags.
Ajay Verma, a consultant gastroenterologist at Kettering general hospital in Northamptonshire, says our gut is a “complex machine.” “It is constantly providing us with the nutrition we need, initially to grow and develop, and then for us to survive, thrive and repair from injury and illness.” How can we keep it functioning well? Put simply: “Make sure what you put into it is balanced, and that you clear out its waste products adequately,” Verma says. “In a general gastroenterology clinic, the most common conditions we see are irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastroesophageal reflux disease, inflammatory bowel disease and constipation,” says Nisha
The arithmetic is straightforward and uncomfortable. By the end of 2025, Taiwan had committed itself to a 50-30-20 electricity mix — half natural gas, 30 per cent coal, 20 per cent renewables. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’s (MOEA) own monthly energy reports tell a different story. Natural gas reached 47.8 per cent of generation last year. Coal stood at 35.4 per cent, comfortably above its target ceiling. Renewables came in at 13.1 per cent, well short of the 20 per cent Taipei had pledged a decade earlier. Installed renewable capacity reached roughly half of the 12 gigawatts (GW) the government
Taiwan’s drone exports are taking off, fuelled by the war in Ukraine, as Taiwanese companies seek a stake in the fast-growing global market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Low-cost drones used for reconnaissance and strikes are in high demand as governments around the world boost defense spending in the face of intensifying conflicts. A relative new player in the increasingly competitive industry, Taiwan’s pitch is to be an “Asian hub” for the production of UAVs and components free of Chinese materials, or “non-red.” That means its UAVs can be up to three times more expensive than their Chinese competitors, like the world’s biggest
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
RSS