As you know Windows 7 had a Global Launch on 22nd Oct. and all are too excited about it. Many of you want to know more about this New Operating System. MeraWindows invites you to the Community launch party in your City. Look out for the community party in your city and the dates below and register for the event-
Get the venue for the party in your city and more details at http://launch.merawindows.com
This community event is conducted by merawindows.com
This Full-color 140 page E-book is available in XPS and PDF formats.
Windows 7 Product Guide XPS.xps 30.5 MB
Windows 7 Product Guide.pdf 62.0 MB
This can be downloaded from here
BIAL has approximately 500 PCs (desktops & laptops), which run the Windows XP operating system. BIAL believes in keeping pace with the latest of technology. The company had long run the Window XP operating system but realized that it needed to upgrade the operating system to maintain support from Microsoft and take advantage of the latest Microsoft innovations. Apart from simplifying its computer environment, BIAL also wanted stronger operating system security features to keep its computers safe. The company wanted a mechanism to control application usage among employees.
In May 2009, BIAL learned about an opportunity to become an early adopter of the Windows 7 operating system. When Microsoft made the Windows 7 operating system available, BIAL swiftly deployed the software on 75 computers across its office. Windows 7 simplifies the way you use your PC, and the way your PC connects with the world.
As a result of using Windows 7, BIAL has benefited from faster deployment times, enhanced IT security, reduced IT management work, and increased employee productivity.
Because of the built-in features of Windows 7, BIAL looks forward to reducing costs significantly. Features such as DirectAccess, and BitLocker reduce costs and deliver tangible value to its customers.“This upgrade demonstrates enormous cost-saving benefit,” says Mr. Rajan. “We have ultimately saved 25 percent of our costs as compared to procurement of third party encryption and VPN software.”
The company’s employees are more productive as a result of features such as federated search functionality improved screen management capabilities, jump lists, and ability to control their own settings have had a positive impact on their productivity.
(These are the Excerpts taken from Microsoft Case Studies - For the full report , please check “Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) Tightens Security, Reduces Costs with New Operating System” )
The Touch Gestures are the basic actions you use to interact with Windows or an application using touch. If you have a touch-enabled monitor and Windows 7 installed, then virtually any program that works with Windows responds to your touch. These Gestures are built into the core of Windows, they are designed to work with all applications, even ones that were never designed with touch in mind. So Windows 7 is touch friendly throughout. Microsoft has come out, after lot of research with 9 gestures in Windows 7. Yes, there are just 9 Touch Gestures for Multi-touch. User can’t remember too many gestures easily and these 9 gestures are all natural ,whatever a user does in real world.
Let us see these 9 Touch Gestures required for Multi-touch magic in Windows 7-
Tap and Double-tap - This is the most basic touch action. This is what a click and Double click does. Works everywhere.
Panning with Inertia – This is for scrolling. Drag any part of page up or down with one or more fingers. “You’ll notice details that make this a more natural interaction: the inertia if you toss the page and the little bounce when the end of the page is reached”. This works in most applications that use standard scrollbars.
Selection /Drag –This is like mouse drag and selection. Touch and slide your finger on screen. This moves icons around the desktop, moves windows, selects text (by dragging left or right), etc. Works everywhere.
Press and Tap with second finger – This is like right click. Press on target and tap using second finger. Works everywhere.
Zoom – This is same as CTRL key + Scroll wheel. Pinch two fingers together or apart to zoom in or out on a document. Useful for photos or reading documents on a small laptop. Works in applications that support mouse wheel zooming.
Rotate - Touch two spots on a digital photo and twist to rotate it just like a real photo. Move two fingers in opposite direction or use one finger to pivot around another. Applications need to add code to support this.
Two-finger Tap - Tapping with two fingers simultaneously zooms in about the center of the gesture or restores to the default zoom – great for zooming in on hyperlinks. Applications need to add code to support this.
Press and Hold – Same as Right Click. Hold your finger on screen for a moment and release after the animation to get a right-click. This works everywhere. Same as the other Gesture of Press and Tap with Second finger.
Flicks - Flick left or right to navigate back and forward in a browser and other apps. This works in most applications that support back and forward. This is also very natural gestures when one wants to flick.
As you can see these are the 9 Touch Gestures in Windows 7 required for Multi-touch magic. Here’s the chart for the same -
And there are many Multi-touch enabled laptops which are are being launched and also some are already available in the market. You can also go just for a Touch enabled Monitor to experience this Multi-Touch magic in Windows 7. Such monitors cost about 20% more than a regular ones and will be available by end of the year. Microsoft has also created a Touch Pack with 6 different Multi-touch enabled apps which will only be installed by OEMs on Touch enabled Laptops.
For all these to be seen in action , check this video which demos all the 9 Touch Gestures, all the applications of Touch Pack and also interviews Amish Patel –PM Windows Experience Group , who explains all about Multi-Touch in Windows 7. This is a must watch video to see the Multi-Touch Magic in action. The apps in the Touch pack are so good to interact.
Also, for more details on Multi-touch in Windows 7, please check these links -
Engineering Windows 7 _ Touching Windows 7
Introducing the Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 - The Windows Blog
Do you want to make a time-lapse video that will show an event happening in a long time and you will time-lapse to show it in a short duration. For example the following video shows Jade building an airplane from Lego’s which will take long time but you want to time-lapse and show the complete process in a jiffy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIzEKFjtwIg
Another example of such time-lapse video is posted here. There are lots of instances you can think of, for Time-Lapsing an event.
Now let us make such a video with Windows Live Movie Maker. First, fix the camera on a tripod. Making use of tripod will give you better uniform level photos of the event. Now keep on taking snaps after some interval of the event you want to time-lapse manually or with software that came with your camera. Take lots and lots of picture to get a better time-lapse effect. Here, a small tip- Try taking photos using laptop Web-Cam instead of regular camera and take pictures after regular interval automatically using some software like AvaCam or Microsoft Powertoy for XP- Webcam Timershot (this may work only with Windows XP). Such apps will help you to take photos automatically after a certain interval of time and save them.
Now after getting lots and lots of pictures, load them into Windows Live Movie Maker. After loading them select all pictures (by right clicking > Select All) and set the Duration to a low value such as 0.3 sec.
That’s all and save them and run the movie to see the time-lapse effect.
Thanks to Windows Live Team Blog post for this tip -The “grown up” side of Windows Live Movie Maker where you can also read some more Movie maker related tips.
If you are not having Windows Live Movie Maker, you can get it from here . And its FREE !
How about booting Windows 7 in 10 seconds, yes, 10 seconds Flat !! Just see the video to believe it.
“A company called Phoenix debuted new BIOS technology that allows Windows 7 to boot up from black screen to desktop in only 10 seconds. Called "Instant Boot BIOS," the Phoenix BIOS uses new UEFI technology to power on several system devices at once instead of one-by-one.”
“The company demoed the boot up process at the Intel Developer Forum where they showed a 20-second boot on a retrofitted Dell Adamo as well as a 10-second boot on a Lenovo T400 with an SSD drive. The company’s Chief Scientist Steve Jones also produced a report from performance logging tool Microsoft Velocity that showed how the BIOS only took 1.37 seconds to hand over control to the OS. He said that future optimizations on netbooks could even lower that time.”
How about making it 7 seconds Boot time for Windows 7 ? :)
(Source: Booting Windows in 10 Seconds Flat)
