Build has been built  [04:10]

Xbox music streams  [11:59]

XP going buh-bye   [07:48]

PARTY in Utah!   [14:11]

Kintext: be what's next [12:43]

Illusionist or Augmented Reality?  [02:22]

Farewell XP [08:13]

Get your Lumia!  [16:10]

The results showed that Windows 7 improved upon XP in every case, even out-of-the-box, prior to updated drivers, for instance. For businesses with XP desktops considering an upgrade to Windows 7, the improvements mean major cost savings, even thousands of dollars as this chart shows.

The full report is available as free download from Ars’ website.

Once installed, you’ll be presented with the same bubbly, shiny toolbars and window stylings you remember from days past. I’ll admit that this isn’t something I’d do – I happen to like Windows 7’s themes – but some of you may think otherwise. Plus sometimes it’s fun to do this kind of stuff just because you can.

Note that installing these themes requires a bit of file hacking – details are here. The links to each of these themes is listed below:

• Zune theme
• Luna
• Luna Metallic
• Royale

With the third-party application, AeroSnap for Windows Vista & XP, you can configure your windows to behave similarly to how they would by default if on Windows 7. You can also customize its interactions, including turning on or off “Snap Preview,” disabling the splash screen, removing the system tray icon, setting its auto-start option, or enabling hotkeys. If you want to get even more precise, you can turn on or off left, right and top snapping or set snapping to function by hotkey only.

It looks like this app has been around for some time – the last update was in summer 2008. But if you hadn’t come across yet and still have XP on your netbook, for example, it may be worth checking out. The app is available as a free download here.

The X50 is only 1.4 inches wide and includes a built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam, 15.6” touchscreen, Intel's Atom 330 dual-core processor, 1GB of system memory, a 160GB hard drive, Intel GMA950 graphics, and I/O ports on the two sides. It runs Windows XP Home Edition.

I don’t see any pricing info yet, but at CES it was rumored to be around $500. At that price, this “netbook of PCs” looks like an attractive option for that extra home PC be it in the kitchen, kid’s room or wherever.

Aesthetically, the effect is similar to Windows 7, although these icons are much smaller. Also, the app doesn’t offer the same kind of functionality as Windows 7 does like Aero Peek or jump lists. Still, it’s a nice way to keep a more cleaned up taskbar in XP while enjoying a bit of what Windows 7 will offer in the future. (via gHacks)

It’s here – Windows XP SP3 - and it brings with it several networking and security improvements as well as a small number of new updates. So what’s new in SP3? Here are some of the things I think are interesting, but this is by no means the full list, you’ll need to go here to see that:

• Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0 – offers reliability enhancements and a new Add/Remove snap-in dialog box
• Network Access Protection (NAP) – helps XP take advantage of new features in Server 2008 that monitors and enforces computer health policies
• BITS 2.5 – used by System Center Configuration Manager and Windows Live One Care
• Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 6.1 – this update facilitates better communication
• Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) – Finally! My favorite! XP will now support for WPA2, the latest wireless security standard

By the way, SP3 Does Not Include IE7, only updates to whichever browser you have installed.

Of course, there are other ways to tweak this box too - for example, in Windows XP, a registry hack can let you update the box with your own settings:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\PlacesBar]
"Place0"="e:\\XP Utils"
"Place1"="e:\\research"
"Place2"="e:\\Registry Patches"
"Place3"="e:\\UtilitiesSet 2"
"Place4"="e:\\UtilitiesSet 1"

TweakUI does it too.

In Vista, it's a bit different. The Places bar is now the "Favorite Links" bar, so customizing them involves going into your Links folder: User_Profile\Links

In here, you can customize the Windows Shortcut (.Ink) files according to this document.

Oh my how technology changes.

With flash-memory falling in price by 50% every year, flash engineered to survive more reads and writes, and processors such as the Intel Atom performing well at small sizes - the price/performance/size curve has dramatically changed.

Two weeks ago, the new little ASUS EEE PC 4G with Microsoft Windows XP pre-installed made an appearance on my local online retailer's price list. Instant purchase!

At home, connected to our wireless network, this little machine is a great twitter-machine. The trackpad and keyboard are large enough - even for my adult male hands. I would not like to write a novel, for hour after hour, on the keyboard. More than sufficient for emails and 140 character twitters.

The inbuilt video camera, microphone and speakers are also handy: if you are a micro-TV producer on Yahoo! Live or similar, this little machine has it all.

Our Windows Home Server has transcoded .wmv TV. The little EEE, which I have named PRINCEEDMUND to keep in my theme of Blackadder names, plays these videos in a watchable manner.

A first installation on the little device is the Windows Home Server backup software. The restoration of the supplied Windows XP and software from ASUS relies on an external USB CD/DVD drive. I strongly suggest obtaining one of these if you plan to install/reinstall your system.

ASUS kindly supply the EEE PC with an external USB mouse and an extra 4Gb Flash storage device.

Whilst I miss Vista, the short cuts for Windows XP are embedded into my brain after 7 years of continual use. Microsoft Works, Windows Live Writer and other tools: biggest constrain is the screen size. This screen size became a hindrance when attempting to install Ubuntu onto the EEE. Not seeing the OK/Cancel buttons on the Ubuntu install dialog box is a wee fail.

Obligatory Disk space and Memory Performance screen dumps

Why should you own one?

Designed for school use, if you are not a student the question is: why? Student-hardened devices are extremely useful if you are a little of a clutz: the plastic and no moving hardware make the EEE robust.

My idea is to have a small machine I can take to meetings. Not to take notes, but rather to read the internet so I don't get bored. The Treo 750 I have is just a little too small to distract me from the powerpoints and management speak.

This little device is going to ensure I am no longer unproductive in meetings; and fits that niche where a laptop is just too large.

For the future, with Intel, Microsoft and broad OEM support: the number of devices in this form factor is going to increase. How we work across multiple devices is a challenge for the future.

Further Watching:

• Bohdan Raciborski, Mark Light. Channel 9, Windows XP on Flash-based Ultra-Cost PCs

This latest update is a significant release, with many features designed for enterprise users. However, there are new features that will benefit everyone, like the speed increase (33% faster!), its ability to index encrypted files, and Remote Index Discovery, which means it can index all the Windows machines on your network, no matter what version of Windows they are running.

Other improvements include:

• Bug fixes - most of the reported bugs seen since Windows Vista RTM have been fixed.
• Rollback Recovery - your search index will roll back to the last known good state if an error occurs instead of being rebuilt from scratch.
• Windows software updates for Watson errors
• Faster previewer updates for Windows XP

For IT Professionals specifically, important new features include:

• Improved performance when indexing Exchange in online mode - less packets and less RPC calls are made, which means less load on the server. Plus, no local cache (.ost)
• Support for indexing online delegate mailboxes
• Support for Group Policy settings (Search.adm/Search.admx) has been extended and improved, including per-user policies.
• An add-in for indexing redirected "My Documents" files (32-bit)

Here's where you can get it:

• Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008
• Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 64-bit
• Windows XP
• Windows XP 64-bit
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Server 2003 64-bit

Out of these, the Z-Systems program looks like the one I would choose, not only because of the Aero aspect, but also because it offers full-screen desktop previews in Vista so that you can easily find the desktop you're looking for. With Z-Systems, you can generate a system tray icon for each desktop, which makes switching really fast. You can also select certain programs that will show up on all of your desktops.