New Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts

 

Personally, if I could avoid using my mouse altogether, I would. I use shortcuts for just about everything I can and I’m happy to share my list of shortcuts for the new Windows 8 operating system with you.

New Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows 8

• Windows+first letters of app: Search your PC
• Ctrl+plus or Ctrl+minus: Zoom in or out
• Ctrl+scroll wheel: Zoom in or out
• Windows+C: Open the charms / Commands for Open App
• Windows+F: Open the Search charm to search files
• Windows+H: Open the Share charm
• Windows+I: Open the Settings charm
• Windows+J: Switch the main app and snapped app
• Windows+K: Open the Devices charm
• Windows+O: Lock the screen orientation (portrait or landscape)
• Windows+Q: Open the Search charm to search apps
• Windows+W: Open the Search charm to search settings
• Windows+Z: Show the commands available in the app
• Windows+spacebar: Switch input language and keyboard layout
• Windows+Ctrl+spacebar: Change to a previously selected input
• Windows+Tab: Cycle through open apps (except desktop apps)
• Windows+Ctrl+Tab: Cycle through open apps (except desktop apps) and snaps them as they are cycled
• Windows+Shift+Tab: Cycle through open apps (except desktop apps) in reverse order
• Windows+PgUp: Move the Start screen and apps to the monitor on the left (Apps in the desktop won’t change monitors)
• Windows+PgDown: Move the Start screen and apps to the monitor on the right (Apps in the desktop won’t change monitors)
• Windows+period: Snaps an app to the right
• Windows+Shift+period: Snaps an app to the left
• Esc: Stop or exit the current task

Frequently Used General Windows Shortcuts

• ALt+F4: Close open program or app
• Alt+Esc: Cycle through items by order of being opened
• Alt+Enter: Display Properties of a selected item
• Alt+Left Arrow: Back
• Alt+Right Arrow: Forward
• Alt+Tab: Switch Between Open Apps
• Ctrl+C: Copy
• Ctrl+X: Cut
• Ctrl+V: Paste
• Ctrl+Y: Redo
• Ctrl+Z: Undo
• Ctrl+Shift+Esc: Task Manager
• Ctrl+Alt+Delete: Vulcan Nerve Pinch
• PrintScr: Copy contents of desktop to clipboard as BMP image
• Windows+E: Open My Computer
• Windows+Up Arrow: Maximize Current Window
• Windows+Down Arrow: Minimize Current Window
• Windows+Left Arrow: Maximize Desktop program to left side of screen
• Windows+Right Arrow: Maximize Desktop program to right side of screen

Dell Releases New Windows 8 Products

Looks like Dell is ready to go for Windows 8. I just don’t know if it looks like these will be good or not. With Dell’s presence in the enterprise though, these might be just what IT organizations are looking for to pacify it’s “consumerized” group of employees.

First up, the XPS 12:

This interesting guy here weighs in at 3.35 lbs. It has two USB 3.0 slots, a MiniDisplay port, 3.5 mm headphone jack and dual speakers. The unique part about it is that the screen flips over, allowing the XPS 12 to turn into an oversized slate. The touchscreen is enticing, but the design is questionable. I can see worn out and broken hinges being a possible issue. Also, the reviewers at Engadget seem to think the trackpad is a little flaky for their liking and not as smooth as it could be when using it in the desktop environment.

They sum it up here:

“Though the XPS 12's size and weight make it a bit unwieldy as a substitute tablet, it's still a compelling option if you're in the market for a high-end, touch-enabled Ultrabook. The XPS 12 is almost as light as other Ultrabooks, with a premium industrial design, comfortable keyboard, gorgeous 1080p screen and a super-fast boot-up time. The biggest drawbacks seem to be the flaky trackpad and the relatively short battery life, which doesn't improve much when you dim that 400-nit display. We'll be curious to see how other touchscreen Ultrabooks fare, particularly those with similarly versatile designs. In the meantime, though, the XPS 12 represents a solid start for this new wave of Windows 8 shape-shifters.”

-Engadget.com

Dell is also releasing a wireless touchpad. I have never desired using a touchpad on a PC. On my MacBook Air, I actually prefer using the touchpad and purchased Apple’s Bluetooth touchpad to go with it. I’m not sure how successful, or even desirable this Dell offering will be.

And now introducing the Dell XPS 10 Windows 8 RT tablet.

The XPS 10 Windows 8 RT tablet is Dell’s RT offering. This is not the fully functional Windows 8 OS but a mobile tuned version limited to apps in the Windows Marketplace. This tablet, like most others becoming available, has a optional keyboard dock that turns it into a pseudo laptop of sorts. Dell’s Windows 8 RT goes on presale for $499 for a 32GB tablet. Without the optional keyboard, that drops down to $399.

Dell XPS 10 Tablet

Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Arrives

It's finally here! Head on over to Microsoft's new Windows Phone site for all the details directly from M$.

Looks like there's going to be 10 handsets for 30 countries on October 21 with the United States release slated for November 8^th. The phones are going to be on over 60 cellphone operators with manufacturers Dell, HTC, LF, and Samsung delivering various units. Microsoft has handsets coming in 2011 including the first for Sprint and Verizon.

Here's the lineup announced today:

•             HTC 7 Surround -- The 3.8-inch T8788 with slideout speaker for AT&T and Telus
•             HTC HD7 -- Schubert comes of age as a 4.3-inch HD2 cousin for T-Mobile and beyond
•             HTC 7 Trophy -- the 3.8-inch Spark headed to international carriers
•             HTC 7 Mozart -- another heavily leaked int'l player with 3.7-inch display
•             Dell Venue Pro -- 4.1-inch portrait QWERTY slider for T-Mobile we broke as Lightning
•             Samsung Focus -- AT&T's 4-inch Super AMOLED slate we broke as Cetus
•             Samsung Omnia 7 -- the i8700 is a 4-inch Super AMOLED jobbie for Europe
•             LG Optimus 7/7Q -- the E900 is the official 3.8-inch global workhorse
•             LG Quantum -- AT&T's 3.5-inch landscape slider first seen as the C900
•             HTC 7 Pro -- a 3.6-inch QWERTY slider for Sprint (2011)

"Glance and Go" is the slogan Microsoft is using for their interface, and looking at the page-like interface with the "tiles" I definitely see where they're going with that. There is a good amount of information available at immediate glance without having to actually open an application like email or Facebook. They announced games and apps today and as time goes on I'm sure this will be a viable mobile platform. Microsoft is pushing cloud computing with this device and the integration with Office alone should make it a contender in the corporate world.

Here's a look at some of the handsets:

HTC Trophy:

LG Optimus:

AT&T's Lineup:

Windows 7 Series Phone Straight Steals Idea From Palm Pre Ad

 

We all know Microsoft has a reputation of stealing ideas. Weather this is true or not really depends on who you talk to. This is just blatant though.

I guess maybe it’s possible that this is just coincidental but Palm’s ad came out first so they get the credit.

Check out the two ads and judge for yourself:

Here is the Palm Pre ad:

 

And the Series 7 ad:

Windows 7 “GodMode”…

…is not very "Godly" at all. The name would have one believe that this unlocks some secret set of features or controls, but really it's just a glorified control panel. Still pretty cool, but that name is ridiculous.

By creating a new folder in Windows 7 and renaming it with a certain text string, users are able to create a single place to do everything from Defrag the hard drive to change the homepage, customize the mouse, change network settings, change battery settings…it's all there.

It is super easy to access GodMode, simply create a new folder and then rename the folder to the following:
"GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}" (without quotes)

Once that is done, the folder's icon will change to the control panel icon and the folder will contain tons of control options. Again, far from what I would consider a true GodMode, but it is definitely an easy way to get to all kinds of controls. Microsoft has been asked for more details on the feature and how it came to be. But so far, the M$ boys are not talking.

Chrome OS Released as VMWare

Want to try out Chrome OS a little? Well now you can – via Virtual Machine. There has been a virtual version of Google Chrome made available completely free, you just have to have VMWare or VirtualBox (free) installed. You can head over to GDGT.com Google Chrome Virtual Machines to get image files for VirtualBox and VMWare. (I was only able to successfully install the VMDK (VMWare link) version so I'm not sure what the "VirtualBox" link does).

A few things to keep in mind, I did not create the image, it came from a torrent. This means that some open source guy could have injected some code to steal your Google info, probably not, but it could happen. Just use alternate/junk Google account credentials and that potential threat is nipped. Second, this is virtual machine, hopefully the people reading this blog are experienced enough to know that with a virtual machine, the OS will never run natively and the performance will reflect that. There will be no 10 second boot time and you may find things to be more sluggish than the native OS (running on a SSD no less) will perform way better.

OK, so I don't have VMWare so here are instructions on how to do this on VirtualBox. Download VirtualBox for whatever OS you have from here: VirtualBox Downloads. Install VirtualBox and start it. Click the "New" button:

A wizard will start and walk you through the OS setup process. Click Next:

Type in the name for your OS and select Linux for the OS Type and Ubuntu for the Version. Click Next.

Select the amount of RAM you want to give the machine and click Next.

Now extract the compressed VMDK image file you downloaded because it needs to be loaded into VirtualBox.

Select to "Use existing hard disk" and click the folder icon to navigate to the VMDK image file you just extracted. Click Next.

Review the settings and click Finish.

Now you can highlight the OS you just installed and click "Start"

The OS comes up as "chromium os" and the log in is via a valid Google account.

Have fun!

Change the Log On Screen In Windows 7

Tired of having the same logon screen as everyone else with the same OS? A standard ctrl+alt+del image too boring for you? Well, now you can change all that.

Windows 7 does not really have an option to change it, but the background can be changed with some simple registry work.

Edit the registry key located here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

Change the value from 0 to 1.

Copy any potential background image to:

C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\Backgrounds (must create folder)
(Images must be less than 256Kb and must be named: BackgroundDefault.jpg)

If done correctly, your background image for all Windows screens will be changed to the picture you selected.

Today I Leave Windows Mobile

A couple weeks ago I got a new phone, an HTC Touch Pro. The phone was pretty cool, but there was one major flaw – Windows Mobile. I've always preferred WinMo for my smartphone or pocket PC needs but I've become quite frustrated with their lack of innovation. The OS has been essentially the same since the year 2000. 9 years is just a tad too long to keep any OS on the market with little to no changes along the way.

Over the past 5 years alone, between WinMo 5, 6, and then 6.1 (6.5 coming later this year and still no significant changes) WinMo has brought nothing to the table other than small cosmetic differences. Their touchscreen phones are plagued with slow and unresponsive actions, unintuitive applications and "features, buttons that require the use of a stylus pen, small scroll bars, a terrible web browser, and the dreaded pocket-dial failure. The Verizon Touch Pro even went as far as including a horrible keyboard flaw when they placed the up arrow key in between the N and M. Seriously? What idiot thought of that?

Windows Mobile used to be fun to me because anything I didn't like on the phone, I could change via registry hacks or 3^rd party software. I guess I've grown tired of trying to improve on something that should have been done already. I've had the Palm Pre for a while, and I'm at wits end with WinMo, I've decided to go with a Blackberry Tour for my work phone.

Just got it today:

I'm getting it all charged up, and Enterprise Activation is complete, so let's see how this works out.

Goodbye Windows Mobile. Maybe we can reconnect after WinMo 7 comes out?

Running XP Mode on Windows 7

As most of you know, Windows 7 comes out on October 22^nd to the general public. MSDN, Technet, and Volume Licensing members are allowed to have it now though. On top of the other great features of Windows 7 (very stable, quick and responsive, intuitive window controls, improved graphics shell…etc) they included access to XP Mode for Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Professional editions. This allows enterprises to use a virtual copy of XP to run software that may not be compatible with anything other than XP. It seems like Microsoft's way of saying "why wait for compatibility testing to finish when you can run Windows 7 now?" Will it be sufficient? We shall see…

Here is a rundown of how to get XP Mode installed on a machine running Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise.

As of 8/12/09, the Microsoft instructions and files can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Verifying Virtualization Support

First you have to verify that your computer can handle the virtualization. The E6500 definitely supports it but I'm not sure about other models.

Here's the Intel software that will tell you if your processor is sufficient.
Run Intel Processor Check from here:
http://www.intel.com/support/processors/tools/piu/


Install and run the Intel software and then navigate to the CPU Technologies tab.
If the value says "Yes" in the "Intel Virtualization Technology" field, then the computer supports hardware virtualization.

Configuring BIOS for Virtualization Support

Shutdown the computer and go into the BIOS. Configuration for each BIOS will be different and instructions can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/support/configure-bios.aspx

For Dell machines, do the following:
Navigate to:

1. Virtualization Support
   
   1. Click virtualization
      
   2. Checkmark "Enable Intel Virtual Technology"
      

Save the BIOS and exit.

Install the Virtual PC Software

1. Install Windows_VPC_RC from:
   http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
   

This installs the Windows Virtual PC software and allows the Windows XP Mode RC to run.

The machine will probably ask for a reboot.

1. Run WindowsXPMode_RC from:
   http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
   

Change Virtual PC Settings

Go into your User folder and there should be a selection for Virtual Machines:

Open the folder, right-click on Windows XP Mode and select Settings.

From this screen you can change several options, like increasing the RAM to 512 MB and changing COM port behavior.

Select "Networking" from the left column:

Change Adapter 1 to the computer's on-board network hardware (it may be defaulted to "Shared Networking (NAT)". This allows the computer to join our domain when configured from XP Mode.

Also, if you chose to save logon credentials during the XP Mode install go into "Logon Credentials" and click "Delete saved credentials". This will stop the computer from automatically logging in when trying to join the VPC to a domain.

Running Windows 7 XP Mode

Click and type "XP".

You should see the following icon come up in the search:

Click on that to run in XP Mode

That's all there is to it. Inside the Virtual XP "My Computer" was connected to all the network drives my Windows 7 machine is running. VPC can be joined to a domain or workgroup as it normally would.

Post Blog via Microsoft Word 2007

I've taken a liking to this whole blogging thing. One of the tools that is making stuff easier for me is using MS Word 2007 as my blog editor. It is super easy to type up a blog and with the click of one button have it go to the blog site of my choosing (sometimes multiple ones). When I use it to publish to Sharepoint it even allows me to add pictures to the blog post.

Here is a little documentation I whipped up if any of you want to link your Word 2007 to your blog provider.

1. Click Start and select "New"
   
   
   
2. Double-click "New Blog Post"
   
   
   
3. Click "Manage Accounts"
   
   
   
4. Click "New"
   
   
   
5. Select your blog provider from the dropdown list and click "Next"
   
   
   
6. Enter your blog account login information and click to "Remember Password".
   
   
   
7. When you click OK, the Picture Options window will pop up. Select a compatible image provider (listed in the dropdown) and click OK.
   
   
   
8. This message means you have successfully added the account to Word 2007.
   
   
   
9. Type up a blog post and click "Publish". The Publish button also includes a dropdown to Publish as Draft to your blog provider.




And there you have it.

So easy a caveman can do it...