HP joined the netbook craze after it saw the market potential for the tiny devices (something Acer has used to propel itself toward the number 2 spot amongst computer OEMs). This one carries less of a netbook-y feel and more of a business-y feel than other typical netbooks, which might help HP reach an audience slightly more concerned about aesthetics than the typical netbook buyer. Things to note:

• It runs Vista, which is great. Thing is, I’m unsure as to whether it runs Windows Vista smoothly enough under load thanks to the chipset being used. This is one of those netbooks which might be a better grab once it’s loaded with Windows 7 thanks to 7’s performance and power usage optimizations.
• The keyboard is spill-resistant (there’s a difference between this and spill-proof), which means that it can likely withstand an accidental coffee or coke spill without problems. Your best bet would be to dry it off quickly.
• Build quality is excellent, and the tool-less design (with switching ram, anyway) is definitely a plus. The only catch is that I can’t think of too many instances where a user would want to upgrade ram on a netbook.

There are two separate add-ons which I also take a look at in this video; one of which is a USB expander that adds extra USB ports, dedicated headphone/mic jacks, as well as a NIC. It’s not a complete docking solution, but it should serve perfectly fine for people who just want to plug one USB cable into their netbook at work as opposed to setting it on a dock. The other is just an external optical drive, which might (again) only really be a necessity in the office.

As with the last video, you can catch this hands-on video after the jump in both vanilla YouTube and YouTube HD.

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NVIDIA’s first ION-based netbook went on sale a few days ago (the Lenovo S12, seen above and in the video), and I managed to get a good run-down of the thing as well as with OCZ’s as-yet-unreleased ION netbook. Things to note:

• ION is essentially a GeForce 9400m repackaged for netbook use, so the same graphical abilities seen in lower end MacBook Pros are also available with netbooks running ION.
• Because there’s a CUDA-enabled 9400m GPU, other CUDA-accelerated tasks can also be run on these netbooks, such as video encoding. The video demonstrates this.
• As can be seen in the video and in the above screencap, Windows 7 runs on these netbooks just fine, which makes sense given that there’s a pretty decent GPU sitting inside these things.

You can catch the video demonstrating 1080p video from the netbooks (as well as other tasks) after the jump in both vanilla YouTube and YouTube HD.

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Microsoft has an obsession with providing awesome deals for students. They also have a slight tendency to shoot themselves in the feet. This is a good amount of both, and thankfully (if you’re a student), it’s in your favor.

Microsoft created the DreamSpark program to give such awesome tools as Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 Professional Edition free to budding Computer Science and Information Technology students with a Windows Live ID. Now, here’s where the fun begins:

Sometime last year, Microsoft added Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition R2 licenses to the DreamSpark program. Even later, they added Windows Server 2008 x86 Standard Edition licenses. Coupled with Vijayshinva Karnure’s step-by-step guide to converting Windows Server 2008 into the ultimate desktop OS published in February of ‘08 on his MSDN blog, the non-technical masses now have themselves a fully functional, relatively-easy-to-configure OS that’s more powerful and more advanced than Windows Vista. Granted, “easy to configure” doesn’t mean “easier to configure than Windows Vista,” nor do you get to have the Windows Media Center, but there’s sadly always a price to pay for FREE. Given a choice between Windows Vista SP1 upgrade for ~65 dollars and Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition for free, which would you choose?

As for the steps provided, I’m not sure if the academic license of Windows Server 2008 allows for Hyper-V, so if you don’t care for Hyper-V support (as instructed in Vijayshinva’s post) or for running any virtual PCs, you can skip steps 1 and 10 on the guide.

The next question: Does Microsoft even support converting the server OS into a workstation/desktop OS? Yep, and not just because of Vijayshinva’s post, but that alone would be a justification for the following reason:

All opinions posted here are those of the author and are in no way intended to represent those of his employer. All posts are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

-Every MSDN, Technet, and other individual Microsoft employee blog.

Microsoft doesn’t endorse the opinions of its employees, but Microsoft does fully endorse any factual matters being discussed regarding its products, including step-by-step guides, support… anything of a non-opinionated nature which doesn’t involve compromising its products (like hex edits). Is this a technical loophole? Sure, but there’s a second, much better reason for Microsoft to support converting Windows Server 2008 into a desktop operating system: The “Desktop Experience” feature.

The Desktop Experience feature was added to Windows Server 2008 in part because of the absurdly high number of requests Microsoft received from small businesses running a server as someone’s desktop machine (plausible in smaller networks where extra server hardware would be cost-prohibitive). The process for turning Windows Server 2003 into a more desktop-worthy operating system was a bit of a pain, so the desktop experience feature was simply intended to make it a bit easier to implement this usage scenario. It’s fully supported by Microsoft.

Now here’s where the DreamSpark deal beats The Ultimate Steal: unlike The Ultimate Steal (which is limited to university students), high school students can also take advantage of DreamSpark. So, if you’re a student at just about any university or high school, go ahead and nab yourself a copy and save 65 dollars. This is probably the only thing available on DreamSpark which is highly relevant to people who aren’t developers.

(If Microsoft decides to take down the steps, which I highly doubt, you can catch the full instructions on converting Windows Server 2008 from a barebones server operating system to a desktop operating system after the break.)

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It’s been roughly seven and a half years since Microsoft released Windows XP to the masses in October 2001. Meanwhile, it’s been a little short of a year and a half since Vista first became widely available. However, many people, myself included, are still running Windows XP. Some people don’t like the changes in the new OS, while others like me just see no reason to shell out the money and buy it. Windows XP has served us well, and many would like to keep it that way.

I personally have always maintained that I would jump to Vista in a heartbeat if we got a machine, but that time hasn’t come yet, and frankly, for my pocketbook’s sake, I’m glad. There are some, though, who still want to get Windows XP when they buy a new machine. I’m not about to jump into a big debate on the topic – it’s just the way it is.

Many computer manufacturers took to expected approach in early 2007 of going “Vista-only”. People asked to get XP back, and many companies (Dell especially comes to mind) went and offered it up again. Microsoft then came out at a later time and said that they would continue offering XP to OEMs and at retail until June 30, 2008 – the end of the month. Some were maddened by this, wanting still to stick with XP.

While I was browsing around last week, I came across this interesting gem on a local computer shop’s web site:

Now as the image says, this shop is no small little thing, they are Microsoft Gold Partner and have close ties with Intel as well. However, I found it interesting that one of the biggest computer manufacturers, Dell, would stop selling XP on new systems on June 18, while this small shop could sell it until January 2009. It now appears that Dell figured it out, and mooted the point made in the above image.

According to a story on Neowin, Dell is now going to offer Windows XP Professional on new computers through “at least 2009 and likely longer.” The story mentioned that this means either Dell stocked up on a “year’s worth” of licenses, or is preceding an announcement by Microsoft saying that XP Pro will continue to live on. Note that Dell is not forgetting Vista here – they are including both media so that users can upgrade when they’re ready. Is it a smart move on Dell’s part? It would appear so at first. I mean, it will surely make people happy, at least those not sure if they’re ready to take the plunge yet

But come on, it’s been 16 months since Vista hit the shelves and some people are still not ready to give up XP? If you’re going to miss a car 16 months after you sell it, or call your son or daughter every day, twice a day, for 16 months after they move out of the house, people will: a) think you’re crazy, and b) in the case of the children, probably hurt you, or at least get rather irritated. However, it’s a completely different story here, and I’m not convinced it should be. Service Pack 1 is here, and although it’s not a huge “life saver”, it is a service pack. This is the magic milestone many people wait for (just look back over comments concerning Vista’s launch). And then look back further. I’m sure there was a transfer period with 2000/98/Me to XP, but was it over a year long? It surely wouldn’t seem to make sense.

The “magic” Service Pack 1 for Windows XP was delivered on September 9, 2002, about 11 months after it became generally available. For Vista, SP1 came on February 4, 2008, literally just 5 days after its one-year anniversary of general availability. So while it was a little longer development time, it still launched five months before XP is to “die”. I think that’s plenty of time to get adjusted.

With Vista, Microsoft redesigned Windows Explorer a lot. One of the biggest changes was the removal of the customizable toolbar. Up to Windows XP, adding or removing the buttons that were displayed in Explorer was a simple chore.
With Vista, this customization ability is gone; the toolbar is replaced by a so-called green shaded “commandbar,” and none of it can be customized unless you are willing to take a dive into the registry.

In this post, I will show you a way to add custom buttons — like in the above image — to the commandbar by adding items to the registry. Unfortunately, not all buttons (e.g. New Folder) are possible via this way.

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