Author Archives: GEEK!

Windows 7 Guide: Customize the look of Windows

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In Windows 7, there’s a brand new way of managing the look of your computer. It’s much tidier and more customizable than in Windows Vista.

To access the central menu for personalization, you can right click on the Desktop and click Personalize, and you will be presented with the following window:

Personalization (2)

You may notice that I’ve scrolled down quite a lot on the window. This is because I’ve already downloaded some themes on my computer, so it may be confusing if i show them. Anyway, moving on…

Windows 7 comes with a selection of themes to come from. If you’d like to look through what is already available, simply scroll through “Aero Themes” and click on any one you would like to see. It will automatically apply any theme you click on.

If they don’t interest you, you can try viewing some online and downloading those. Microsoft regularly creates more themes for you to download for your computer. Simply click the “Get more themes online” link.

Once you’ve found the theme you’re happy with, just click it and the theme is automatically running.

You can customize the theme if you’d like. Just use the four options at the bottom of the window – ie Desktop Background, Window Color, Sounds and Screen Saver. You can spend ages using your own backgrounds, colors, sounds and screen savers if you want!

Have fun with the great new options in Windows 7!

Office 2010 beta on Technet/MSDN

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Good news! Office 2010 beta is now on Technet and MSDN which means that hopefully, it will be publicly available within the next week or so. It would be nice!

I’ve been on the technical preview for a few months now, and it is brilliant but it does have its problems here and there.

So hopefully the new version will be a bit more comprehensive and practical.

GEEK! will let you know as soon as the beta is publicly available.

Mobile Broadband traffic shaping at birth with 3

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Three (3) UK, which reports it has the best 3G network coverage in the UK, has recently announced that from Monday it will be shaping the amount of traffic on its mobile broadband service.

It comes after reports that mobile internet is becoming increasingly popular in the UK. Three is obviously becoming concerned that the sharp rise in mobile broadband subscribers has meant that more and more people are putting strain on the relatively small amount of mobile broadband bandwidth available.

Three have said that it won’t affect you if you don’t use large amounts of bandwidth on the network and that the scheme is mainly being used to highlight very heavy users.

So, if you know you use large amounts of bandwidth on your mobile broadband, enjoy it for the last time. You’ve got 36 hours to knock yourself out! After that, you’re doomed to inevitable future of traffic shaping on mobile broadband!

Firefox 5 years old today!

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Believe it or not – it was 5 years ago today that the initial release of Mozilla Firefox was made, according to the Wikipedia thread here.

Hasn’t it come a long way since launch. It is the main competitor to Internet Explorer and it used by millions. As of August 2009, it apparently had a market share of 22.98% which is the biggest of any open-source internet browser by far!

Yet it’s totally free and is well supported on many operating systems – most notably Windows and Linux.

It just shows how totally awesome open-source software is and how far it can get. I’m a big fan of open-source and I think that it’s one of those things that made the turn of the 21st century!

Great work to everyone who makes Firefox, bring this brilliant software on! Take on Internet Explorer!

Windows 7 security issues concerning…

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Well I have to say that after yesterday’s experience with Windows 7 I am slightly concerned about the security side of the new operating system.

I’m not the only one with concerns for Microsoft’s security. Sophos, a valued security organisation, has criticized Microsoft says Windows 7 is vulnerable to “8 out of 10 viruses” spreading round the world wide web at this time.

My concern isn’t really to do with viruses, but more down to anti-malware in general.

I was quite frankly astounded that a trojan had made it’s way onto my computer just 2 weeks after installing Windows 7. Now I am quite experienced with computers (not to boast about it!!) and I don’t go round downloading malicious software from the internet, so I was quite puzzled when my computer started acting up.

Windows was mysteriously minimizing Windows randomly – typical sort of thing with a trojan. It didn’t take long for me to work out something had infected my computer and Comodo Internet Security wasn’t reporting any type of threat, so I downloaded some other software and eventually dug it out.

After about half an hour of scanning, the threat was fished out of the Windows Registry and I managed to fix the issue rather easily, and the symptoms immediately stopped.

What puzzles me is how easily a trojan managed to make its way into my registry and start messing around with my computer. I thought Windows was supposed to dig out threats before they take control.

Well, whatever. But it is a concerning issue. Microsoft needs to do something about this, and fast – or Windows 7 could quickly end up with a poor reputation. And a poor reputation is the last thing Microsoft want right now – not after the outrage from Windows Vista.