Microsoft developers did their job well and already included the main drivers you are likely to need onto the Windows. So if you used to always install drivers for every single piece of hardware on your computer the good news is now you don’t have to do it, because Windows 7 already knows how to work with most of the main hardware peripherals.

Of course I can’t say that all of the driver’s problems are sorted out completely. No it’s not the case because new hardware appears on the market every day and Windows just can’t follow them all. You still have to install drivers for some devices you want to use. Apart from that, Windows’ installed drivers are generic and have only the basic features. If you want to take full advantage of the hardware it’s recommended you update and install a driver manually.

The installation process is not difficult if your driver has been certified by Windows. In this case just follow the installation wizard.

But sometimes it doesn’t go very smoothly and you might have some tiny niggles. The thing is your Operating System is developed to increase security and stability. A digital verification of the drivers signature is required by Windows before it will allow you to proceed with the installation, it’s the OS’s in-built security. If they won’t be verified the installation process won’t go any further.

Here is some advice about how you can fix this problem. First of all you should create your own digital certificate. When it’s done install the certificate onto your Windows 7 as a trusted publisher. Then use the Microsoft’s Authenticode signing tools to sign the device driver packages. It’s only three steps to sort it out. After doing this there won’t be any warning messages from your system and you can install the driver swimmingly.

At times it happens that the updated driver works not quite as you expected it to, for instance it has some bugs or causes resource or hardware conflicts with the other installed devices. On occasions like this you might want to bring your previous driver back in to play.

Windows 7 has a great feature called “Driver Roll Back” which allows you to replace the updated driver you have just installed with the previous version installed on your computer. There are two “BUTs” though. Firstly, it saves only the very last version you have had, you can’t roll back any other drivers. And secondly, this feature is available for all hardware apart from printers. So if you have installed a driver for a printer and want to replace it with the previous one, the system won’t let you do it, you will have to download and install the driver all over again.

To roll back the previous driver, open the Device Manager in the Control Panel window. Then you will be offered the option of choosing the device which you want to replace the driver for. When found right click on the device and go to “Properties”. In the next window that will be open find the Driver tab. There you will see the button “Roll Back Driver”, just click on it and confirm that you accept the warning message and that you want to proceed.

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Microsoft surface

The highlight, for me, was trying out Microsoft Surface, the tabletop multi-gesture surface (or, probably more accurately, it’s a smoked glass touch sensitive coffee table). The one I tried was their original £10 model but with Samsung now manufacturing these the price has already come down to £5k. Once it hits around £1k they think the home user may be interested.

But this isn’t just a large table-top tablet. The abilities of the Microsoft Surface are really quite amazing, which it’s able to implement using IR sensors below the table top to detect levels of heat.

Two demonstrations of what it could do stood out. First, a transparent pass card was placed on the surface. Embedded in the card, but not visible to the eye, were the user credentials. Upon seeing this the Surface, below where the pass card was placed, showed a keypad and allowed the user to enter their password. This means the card itself became the pin pad.

The other demonstration used a combination of physics and graphics. Balls dropped down the screen to settle on one side. You were then able to pick a number of disks and place on the surface, each performing different tasks – one could adjust the gravity, another would be seen as a solid object, etc, etc. So the gravity one, when turned, would cause the balls to realistically tumble around the table depending on where you’d pointed it. A simple demo but powerfully showed what the table was capable of.

I’d say the only thing about Surface that I wasn’t keen on was the slightly matt finish of it – I’m guessing to reduce finger prints, etc.

Windows Phone 7

I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve not tried out Windows Phone 7 before and, thanks to a nice man from Microsoft, I was able to try out his personal HTC phone (which I believe was an HTC Mozart). As a die-hard Android fan, I have to say that I was quite impressed. The interface looks very nice and is very smooth in use.

I’m still not sold, however, due to various shortcomings of the OS (lack of apps, 3rd party apps can’t fully multi-task, etc).

I’m told that at my place of work, who currently use Blackberries, will shortly also be offering managers the option to use Windows Phone 7 instead. I’d go for the Microsoft option.

Nintendo 3DS

Also, a few days ago, I had my first opportunity to try out the Nintendo 3DS running Pilotwings. It was only a brief try-out, concentrating on the game and the 3D camera.

The 3D is, it has to be said, impressive – it has a real feeling of depth. It takes a second or so to adjust your eyes to it, though, and there is my main issue – after playing for a few minutes my eyes struggled to adjust back to normal. A colleague of mine started to get a headache.

Ignore all the tat in the papers at the moment about massive returns as that’s not the case. However, BBC’s Click programme recently reviewed the 3DS and said that pretty much everyone that tried it in their office switched off the 3D after a few minutes. If the 3D is all you’re buying it for – try first!

If, though, you’re happy to turn off the 3D then you’ll instead have a powerful games console. The graphics are vastly improved and the improved controls are easy to use.

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Basically, it’s IE but without the ability to change the URL or move backwards through pages – they want you to try it out, but without thinking this is anything like the end product. It can installed alongside your current IE version, however.

What it does do, though, is allow you to test “under the hood” changes – particularly around HTML 5, JavaScript enhancements and (snigger) standards improvements.

A Beta version of the full browser was available a while ago, though, but it was soon replaced with further Platform Previews.

They’re very pleased with their Acid3 score of 95% (compared to 100% for Webkit based browsers, although a lot better than IE’s current 20% rating) and their quick (but extremely dodgy) JavaScript benchmark. Time will tell how it pans out…

One thing that IE9 does add is the ability for sites to create their own jump lists in Windows 7. Here’s an excellent article on how to achieve this. Google Chrome already supports jump lists, and it looks like Firefox will have it after 3.7 is released.

First of all, I thought I’d check whether I could, so I’d contact Microsoft – their EULA didn’t appear specific enough. Their contact page shows an 0844 number for contacting them (0844 800 2400). However, this appears, through a near-endless selection of options, seems to direct you to websites or to pay them to answer a technical query.

The option for activating licenses simple gives you a freephone number (0800 0188354), but this is an automated system for activation.

In the end, I emailed them using the address on the aforementioned contact page. They got back to me and, after much discussion on how I got the software and what the packaging looked like, I was told it was specific to that PC. You see,  when I bought the Mesh I plumped for the option for them to install it and send me the licence key. This would be easier than buying it separately, although it was about the same price.

I then sent off, for a small additional cost, to receive the DVD with the software on. So I now have a very official looking Microsoft DVD box, containing DVD and key. But Microsoft won’t transfer the licence.

So much for saving money.

Thankfully, my daughter has been saving for a laptop and wanted Microsoft Office – a retail 3 user licence is only £5 more than a 1 user licence. So I now have it on my home PC and on my Netbook (and my daughter will have it on her new laptop when she gets it). And, because it’s the retail edition I can transfer the licence keys.

But, I still have a perfectly good copy of Office 2007 which I can’t use or even sell. And Microsoft wonder why people don’t seem to like them? Grrrr.

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It annoys me that high street PC magazines rarely cover essential items such as keyboards and mice, giving them only a fleeting comment when bundled with a PC.

So, after a recommendation on Twitter I bought a Microsoft Keyboard 600 – a wired affair (can’t see the point in wireless keyboards) – for a rather cheap £9.99. It’s spill resistant. It’s got a few extra keys. It’s quiet. Most importantly, it uses a standard keyboard layout. Hurrah!

Anyway, it turned up yesterday. The keys have an excellent feel and it is quiet in use. I couldn’t tell from the specification but it has little feet on the rear, for those (like me) who don’t like having their keyboards flat on the desk.

It has a very handy calculator button next to the “lock” lights and across the top there are 4 media buttons (volume up, down, mute and play/pause). The keyboard is USB only and I’m running Windows XP – the keyboard (and media buttons) work immediately without any need for drivers (not that any come with it).  However, the volume doesn’t appear on screen – this can be corrected by installing Microsoft’s free IntelliType software, which adds extra functionality (e.g. remapping the keys).

The top row of keys (mainly Function keys) are half height but, as they’re hardly used, this isn’t a great issue. It’s just a shame that they shrunk the “Esc” key as well – there’s nothing above it, so it could have been full height without a problem.

Summary of Microsoft Keyboard 600

It looks looks, it feels good and is under a tenner. The only downer is the half height function and Esc keys (I think it could also have done with back and forward track media buttons as well), but for the money it’s not worth losing a rating star over.

If you’re after a new keyboard, aren’t bothered about it being wireless and don’t want to pay any ridiculous prices then this is excellent value for money.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 2nd July 2010.

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The idea is that you mark folder that you wish to add to the Mesh. On your other linked computers, it then creates matching folders where the data is shared. These folders aren’t short cuts, so even though you would have set one up initially on one computer, there is no “base” computer on which the data is held. “The cloud” is used to hold the data as it flows between the various computers.

However, for a good few days one of my PCs has only been synchronising one way, for no good reason. I tried un-installing and re-installing the program, but then it wouldn’t connect at all to Live Mesh.

To add insult to injury, upon un-installing a folder of file conflicts was generated by Live Mesh containing 11 files going back to August last year. I had thought that occasionally changes had gone missing, but as no conflicts had been flagged, I just assumed it wasn’t the case. Now I know otherwise. Indeed, un-installing Live Mesh on my 2 other computers also generated folders full of file conflicts.

So, the search was on for a replacement.

My initial investigations lead me to ZumoDrive. Now, ZumoDrive works in a different way to Live Mesh. Again you assign folders to share, but here you have a new mapped drive letter on which each shared computer appears with the shared folders under each. With Mesh there was no concept of which computer the data was coming from – it was all one shared “mass”. I’ll admit I wasn’t keen. None-the-less, ZumoDrive have an excellent matching Android App, which even separates out music and photos.

However, the initial synchronisation took forever – in fact it seemed to sit on “idle” with no transfer activity at all. On top of that some files transferred over with missing icons.

Next, I came to Dropbox. One of the most popular solutions, I’d initially avoided it because of the lack of a matching Android App¹. However, it’s the one I’ve settled with.

Dropbox is simplicity itself – maybe too simple for some people. Basically, it places a folder on your PC (wherever you wish to put it) and anything you place in it gets synchronised with your other PCs. And the best bit – it’s damn fast. The initial synchronisation of 10MB of data took no time at all, and file modifications have been almost instant. I’m very, very impressed.

Only one issue so far – after booting up one of my computers this morning it didn’t, even after a number of minutes active, pick up on a number of file changes that I’d made. It was only when I added something to the Dropbox folder on that computer did it transfer everything else. I’m sure it was just my impatience though…

Capacity is not a great issue for me as I’m only synchronising small amounts of data however it should be noted that Mesh provides 5GB and ZumoDrive and Dropbox 2GB. ZumoDrive initially provides 1GB and you have to perform a series of tasks to receive the extra 1GB. Dropbox does similar and you can continue to increase your capacity by signing up new customers.

1. although one is due soon

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I’ve seen many similar lists on other sites but they seems to suffer from at least one of the following…

1. Concentrating on applications which are, well, generally useful and not really Netbook specific. Free antivirus? Hmm.
2. Recommending the same old “popular” choices – irfanview, OpenOffice, etc.
3. Recommendation are mainly around the theory of moving everything OFF your Netbook, so it’s online apps and USB storage.

I’ll try and avoid all 3. Some may be of use for non-Netbook owners, but they should all have a very specific advantage to those of use with these handy, portable devices.

Scrybe

Scrybe provides gesturing support to your touchpad – in particular those that support multi-touch (such as the Acer Aspire One). Draw a pattern on the touchpad, for instance, to launch a particular application.

Even if you don’t wish to use this facility, you do get an upgraded version of Synaptics touchpad driver.

TouchFreeze

TouchFreeze is a nice idea but I’m not sure how well it’s yet been implemented – it didn’t work for my netbook and there hasn’t been any updates to the software for a while. None-the-less, it’s worth a try.

In a nutshell, it disables your touchpad when you being typing so that your palm doesn’t accidentally do something it shouldn’t do!

winsupermaximise

This adds a system tray icon which, once clicked (or you can press a hotkey combination), will “super maximise” the current window – that is, it will resize so the title bar is actually above the screen boundaries, thus saving those extra pixels that you don’t want to waste.

Yawcam

Most netbooks come with webcams but few include any kind of software to make use of them. Yes, you can install Skype and video call, but is that all it’s good for?

Yawcam will add some much needed abilities to that webcam – video streaming, image snapshots, a built-in webserver, motion detection and FTP uploads.

Live Mesh

There are a number of providers of free folder synchronisation (that is sharing folders across different computers) but I, personally, prefer Microsoft’s Live Mesh.

The files are also accessable online – up to 5GB worth.

What sells it to me is its simplicity. I have a folder on my desktop which I’ve set up with Live Mesh to share – anything placed in that folder is automatically shared across all my PCs. This therefore provides a quick and easy way to share data with a portable device such as a Netbook.

AltDrag

Quite how I missed this from my original list, I don’t know.

With the smaller screen resolution of Netbooks it’s often the case that program windows aren’t always visible on screen, in particular with the top bar hidden off screen so you can’t move it back in view, or it may be a window without a “dragable area”.

Linux has a great function that allows you to move windows with the mouse when pressing the ALT key. Well, now, you can have this on Windows too thanks to AltDrag,  a small, free application.

Desktops

Desktops is a Microsoft utility that provides multiple desktops – ideal for those cramped Netbook screens. Quickly swap between different desktops with the system tray icon or with shortcut keys.

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After much trawling I found an answer – and this worked for both instances (both of which occurred months apart).

Either, open up the command prompt (click on Start, Run and type type in CMD) and type each of the following lines in one at a time OR cut and paste them into a .BAT file and run that (I do the later).

REGSVR32 MSXML3.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL
REGSVR32 QMGR.DLL
REGSVR32 QMGRPRXY.DLL
REGSVR32 JSCRIPT.DLL

You’ll have to click “OK” when each line is run, but there’s no reboot required – simply restart Internet Explorer and try out Microsoft Update again.

I should add too, that automatic updates from the system tray still appear to work when this error occurs.

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Microsoft doesn’t want Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) to die and, indeed, they’ve announced that they will continue to support it until 2014.

IE6 was launched in 2001 yet remains popular. Most of these users, I suspect, are businesses – we use it at my place of work. Except, there’s a growing back lash against the use of this version of the browser.

So, what’s wrong with it?

Well, security for a start, which has moved on a lot since 2001. For me, however, it’s the problem with web development. It isn’t compliant with the appropriate standards and developers often have to introduce “tweaks” to sites to get them to specifically work with IE6. Microsoft had been pretty lax with these standards¹ and only really started making a nod to improvements with this release. It wasn’t until IE7 that serious consideration was made.

Then there are other issues – it doesn’t support transparency with PNG images, for instance. All of this means that whilst most modern browsers will just work if your site code is written properly, swathes of effort often then have to be put in to get it to work with IE6. Here’s a useful, but jokey, comparison.

But, hell no, Microsoft is going to keep supporting it, rather than withdrawing support and pushing IE8 out in preference. Odd, as they were keen to try and get rid of XP after Vista came out. That was until it became really popular again, thanks to Netbooks. Surely this isn’t a commercial issue is it? Microsoft appear happy to force users to upgrade if there’s money in it, but with free software such as IE, they’d much rather be seen doing “the right thing” for business.

However, playing devil’s advocate, I should point out that IE6 was the last version of Internet Explorer that was compatible with any Windows OS before XP. Therefore, if you’re hanging onto Windows 98 with your finger nails, you’re stuck with 6 as your IE choice. Having said, that, as I think that most of this is due to business, I suspect this isn’t their reason. I know at my place of work that certain essential online applications won’t run on newer browsers – and god help them think about buying anything newer

There’s a growing band of developers who are adding code of their site to detect and reject those using IE6. This is one way to go if you don’t want to develop a site specifically for this browser. The other is to swallow your pride and change it.  Personally, I’ve not got around to checking this site with IE6 – there is a vast list of browsers I need to give priority to first. In time, though, I will and I’m sure, like a fool, I’ll fix any problems.

1. probably because they could be – what was the alternative at this point?

Live Mesh Desktop

Although I’d seen recommendations of Live Mesh, I’ve avoided it because, well, I didn’t think I’d like it. In the end, a week or so ago, I did try it and I was wrong – it’s actually quite good.

Live Mesh is a simple concept – you can convert any of your folders into Live Mesh folders that are then instantly synched onto your online account (where they can be accessed), known as your desktop, or any other computer that you’ve set up. In my case I have it on my home PC and Netbook.

Now, I don’t use it for more permanent stuff, but it’s useful if I want to move a file from one to another – the other day, for instance, I needed to put my CV onto my Netbook. I simply dropped it into a Live Mesh folder on my PC and it was transferred across.

It’s simple to use¹ and free.

1. well, I say that, but it can be confusing at first when setting up a Live Mesh folder on one computer and it syncing across to others. Or maybe it was just me

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