Archive for the “Gadgets” category
It’s a great time to unleash your personal computer’s full potential. Pack your PC with Windows 7 Home Premium and get a chance to win a brand new Montero Sport.
The people at Microsoft believe and understand the importance of technology for Filipino families. Whether you’re a busy dad, a multi-tasking mom, a teen bursting with passion and creativity or a kid at play, Microsoft delivers performance to address your individual needs. That’s the reason they designed Windows 7 to be more nimble, efficient, and responsive.
Here are just a few of my favorite new features in Windows 7.
HOMEGROUP
Gone are the days when you would always carry a USB flash disk or an external hard drive around whenever you’d want to share music, photos and videos with other family members’ PCs in the other rooms. All you need to do is create a HomeGroup on your Windows 7 Home Premium (or Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise editions) PC running on a wireless network and have the others connect to it via secured and password-protected private network even your nosy neighbors can’t break in.
My boy playing with the Windows 7 PC in the bedroom
REMOTE MEDIA STREAMING
Whether you’re in the office and your stay-at-home-mom/husband caught the baby’s first steps on video or you’re traveling out-of-town and you’re too eager to share a mesmerizing video you’ve caught on a handycam, you no longer need to wait to be back home to share the joys with your loved ones.
Turn Remote Media Streaming on using the new Stream menu in Windows Media Player 12 and associate two computers (both running Windows 7) with an online ID such as a Windows Live email address.
And with the help of the all-improved Windows Live Movie Maker, you can even turn precious photos, videos and music into a full length music video. This is part of the Windows Live Essentials, a free download that also includes tools for photos, instant messaging, email, social networking, and more.
PARENTAL CONTROLS
It’s so amazing how my daughter, at a very young age, can already operate a computer and search for her favorite videos on video streaming websites all over the web. On the other hand, her early exposure to the internet makes me worry that she may stumble on a not-so-kid-friendly website.
But this is where Windows 7 Parental Controls come in handy. Download Windows Live Family Safety, a free program which helps parents manage which websites they can browse or the persons your kids can talk to online.
Not only that as Parental Controls also help parents limit the time the kids can use the computer as well as the programs and games they can use so you don’t have to worry that they’ll just be wasting their time doing silly things in the computer instead of being a productive kid exploring new things and improving their knowledge and creativity.
All in all, Microsoft made a lot of improvements and innovations in Windows 7.
It is designed to make programs run faster. Personal computers sleep, resume and reconnect to wireless networks faster. Smart search allows you to look for something in your not-so-organized file folders faster. New USB devices get installed and ready to use faster.
It’s all about the speed.
Nobody likes to wait and this is why Windows 7 is designed to be more nimble, efficient, and responsive. That way, you could spend every precious moment with your family and loved ones.
Jarir Bookstore is Saudi Arabia’s largest bookstore chain whose patrons flock the outlets more for consumer electronics rather than school and office supplies and paperback novels. If my calculations are correct, their store inventory has a book and gadget ratio of 3:7. Consumer electronics win!
I went to a branch nearby to buy a very specific gadget I’ve been eyeing for months only to find out that it finally got phased out and the units that went on sale the previous months were actually the last ones in existence. So instead of going home empty-handed, I went for what people are really supposed to be looking for in a bookstore – books. There were lots of books on sale and I was tempted to get cookbooks and travelogues but finally settled on the LOTR boxed set.
At the cashier, my purchase earned a lot of curious looks. Old school?
Then I realized if I were to buy SR150 worth of books each month then in one year, I would have bought books amounting to about SR2,000 which is just a little less than the prize of a Samsung Galaxy S II which according to reviews, is very much capable of running the Amazon Kindle Android application.
Is it time to go digital?
This gadget-looking LOTR box set from Harper Collins Publishing doesn’t really look good on my wall-mounted bookshelf I bought from a local DIY shop.
Another website is coming up and though I’m not looking for yet another web hosting company, let me let you all know that I’m currently hosting my sites at Hostgator. I’ve been to a lot of web hosts in the past and I’m hoping that I won’t have to move servers again because moving from host to host takes a awful lot of patience and perseverance. I’ve tried Netfirms, Dreamhost, Bluehost and Hostmonster and they all disappointed me so much that I never wish to be hosting any of my sites with them again even if they lower their web hosting services to a dollar a year (yes, Netfirms is doing that but please don’t let yourselves get fooled).
When in a lookout for a new web host, please do take time to read and understand hosting reviews, there are a lot of them plastered all over the internet but please be a bit wiser to know which ones are really doing the reviews and are not just baiting possible referrals with their referral IDs.
That’s all, thank you!
