Old School File Selection:

This method is tried and true and has been around since at least Windows 3.0 in 1990.

• To select multiple files, hold down ctrl while clicking on the individual files you want.
• To select a large range, select the first file, then shift-click on the last file.  All files in-between will be automatically selected.
• You can combine the above two methods with ctrl-shift-click to select multiple ranges.

While the above method has been around forever, and is commonplace for most users, it can still require patience and dexterity.  It is also very easy to lose your selection by a wrong click of the mouse.  There is an easier method.

The easier method:

In Vista and newer, including Windows 7 and Windows 8, there is an option to use check boxes for multi selection.  For some reason, this cool feature is turned off by default, but it is simple to turn on:

1. In Windows Explorer, hit the ALT key one time to make the hidden menu bar appear.
2. Select Tools > Folder Options
3. Select the View tab
4. Scroll down and select the option named “Use check boxes to select items”
5. Hit OK

You will now have the option to select each file by simply placing a check to the left of each filename.  This can even be used in conjunction with the Old School method mentioned above.  Check out the samples below.

1. Assuming you’re running Windows 7, can you complete your system with free applications?

2. Building on question #1, can you run your computer — including the operating system — on 100% free software?

3. Now that Windows 7 has shot past Vista market share (in just six months), I’ll post a high-level review of what made this forgotten operating system such a sore subject for many people. (Update 9-8-10:  Here is that blog entry: http://www.bowlesonline.com/from-vista-to-windows-7-how-did-microsoft-fix-windows/)

3. I got an Apple ipad for work (yes, for work).  What are my thoughts?

By the way, does anyone know what kind of tree this is?

Of course I recommend you proceed at your own risk.  Anytime you flash a device you could brick it.  Although, I have flashed my Tilt 2 dozens and dozens of times without issue. I recommend the NRG ROMs.  He keeps his ROMs updated and offers various flavors.

~~~~~

October 25, 2009: In last week’s post about my new AT&T Tilt 2, I asked the question if anyone knew how to remove the “Getting Started” item from the Windows Mobile, I mean Windows Phone 6.5 default menu.  There is no menu editor included with my phone (that I can find) so I was stuck with this useless item taking up real estate.  Well, I’ve had MANY hits on this blog entry but no one has posted an answer. After poking through the Windows Phone Marketplace I found a free app called the “Home Screen Customizer.”  This app is simple and does one thing – allows you to customize the home screen menu.  You can remove any item from the menu, but for some reason you can only add certain apps.  Additionally, you can easily rearrange the order of the items in the menu.

By the way, if you like the Autumn theme in the screen shots below, you can download for free in this post.

The following screen shots show the Windows Phone 6.5 menu before and after editing. You can clearly see the “Getting Started” item is present in one shot and missing in the next (ignore the time stamps).

Below is the interface of the Home Screen Customizer tool. It’s simple and does its intended job well. To remove an item simply tap the “X” – don’t worry you can add it back if needed. The red heart denotes which menu item is highlighted at load time.

After you customize the menu you can remove the app, or it is small enough to leave in-place. Thanks to these guys for creating this great free app. It is something I was looking for.

Additionally, the guest OS (XP in this case) runs on a virtual hard disk (VHD).  The VHD is actually a large, single file on your physical disk.  To the host system this is a single file, but to the guest OS, this looks like a physical disk.  From the host you can move this file around, back it up, delete it, etc… Keep in mind that if you delete this file, you are essentially deleting your guest operating system.

To get started, you need a virtualization engine such as Microsoft Virtual PC (also free).  Once VPC is installed, you need to download XP Mode (this is a large download since it is a full copy of XP SP3).  The setup is painless. The only info you will need to provide is an admin password for your XP instance. Obviously, you can customize all kinds of settings but the defaults are acceptable for running XP. If needed, you can go back later and adjust memory, disk size, etc.

Once the setup is complete you can do anything within the virtual instance of XP as you would do in any other OS. You can install applications, surf the web, change the wallpaper, etc…

In this image you can clearly see XP with IE6 running within Windows 7

So why would you want to run Windows within Windows? I can think of several scenarios in which you would need to run XP within Win7.

1. Keep in mind that Microsoft’s biggest competition for Windows 7 isn’t Linux or Mac OSX, it is XP itself.  Windows XP is everywhere in corporate America. Applications have been written to run on XP since 2001. Many of these apps will indeed run in Windows 7 but there are many that will not.  In a perfect world, the developers would go back and update the apps and provide free upgrades, but Microsoft realizes this isn’t going to happen. So, in order to hurdle the compatibility barrier, they decided to basically give corporations the ability to run the apps in XP within Windows 7.  Not exactly efficient, but a solution exists.
2. No matter how successful Windows 7 is, there will still be people running XP for years to come. Unfortunately, many of these people still run Internet Explorer 6. Web and app developers need a method to test their sites on this older technology. Instead of keeping an old PC around just to test their site on IE6, they can simply fire up XP Mode with IE6.
3. Since the guest OS is installed on its own virtual disk, you can use the virtual instance as a security sandbox for anything you wouldn’t want to do in your host system.  If something gets hosed, just delete the virtual disk and reinstall XP Mode.

Running XP in a virtualized environment is not new or groundbreaking. So what makes XP Mode different?  For one, you actually get a free licensed copy of XP (most virtualized copies of XP are boot-legged).  Secondly, unlike some virtualization engines, the experience is seamless. You can easily copy/paste between the host and guest systems and there is a single mouse which traverses all instances without synchronization. Next, and really cool, is the ability to add a shortcut to a virtualized application within XP to your Windows 7 start menu.  This is significant because it hides the XP OS and only exposes the application to the user.  This is referred to as publishing an application in XP Mode and is enabled by putting the application in the ”All Users” group in the virtualized XP start menu.

In this screenshot, you can see a link to Google Chrome which is installed in the XP virtual instance. Chrome is not installed on Windows 7 in this example.

..and here is Chrome running in XP Mode without XP being visible.  Keep in mind Chrome is really running in a virtualized instance of XP.

We haven’t had land-line service in our house for six years.  It just seemed like an unnecessary expense month after month when we both carried around cell phones.  Yes, I’m aware of the 911 argument but it has been a risk we were willing to take.  Things change, we had kids, and moved out of a dense neighborhood onto some land. Gentry, my wife, was concerned that 911 service would have a difficult time finding us via cell phone. Plus, our primary babysitter doesn’t have a mobile phone.  So, to ease all concerns, we bought the Magic Jack. I can honestly say… The Magic Jack works.
 

What is the MagicJack?

There are two components to the Magic Jack: 1. The device itself and 2. A yearly service component.  As far as I can determine the device has several purposes:

1. It is a USB storage device which, once plugged into your PC for the first time, automatically installs the MagicJack software.  (Updates are automatically applied as needed.)
2. It is a phone to USB converter. You can use any old touchtone phone.
3. It also serves as a licensing device.  The installed software won’t successfully start on your PC unless this is plugged in.  You can take the device form PC to PC with ease without breaking any license agreement.

There are a couple of service plans available. We signed up for a three year plan for just a few bucks per year.

How does the MagicJack work?

Just in case you didn’t know, it’s not relly magic. Once plugged into your computer, a program known as a softphone launches and connects to a remote PBX somewhere on the Internet. The cool thing is that all the magic is transparent to the user — all you see is an onscreen phone app.  This is no different than other softphones which are common in corporations.  One of the great things about a softphone is that you are not bound by your home.  You can take your laptop with you to a hotel or Starbucks and make/receive calls as if you were sitting at your desk. Unlike other softphone solutions, the MJ must be plugged directly into your computer so the software can validate your license.

A phone is NOT required – yes, that is correct.  You can plug the MagicJack in and use your built in speakers/mic as a speakerphone.  Alternatively, you can plug in a headset to another USB port or even a Bluetooth headset.  Again, a phone is not required as a long as the MJ is plugged in to a USB port.

Can I pick my own phone number with a MagicJack?

Yes, well, kinda… You select an area code and prefix and you are offered several number options to select from.  We picked an area code for an area in which we actually live, but I would assume you can pick any area code that is available.

Does MagicJack offer 911 serivce?

Yes, when you run through the initial setup you are required to supply a physical address where the MJ will be used.  In the event you make a 911 call, the emergency service will be dispatched to this address.  Keep in mind that if you make a 911 call from Starbucks or a hotel room, the dispatcher will still get your home address.  Oops!

Does MagicJack offer voice mail and other enhanced services?

Yes, these are all included.  In fact, when you get a voice mail it will send it via an attachment to your email address on file. Caller ID, Call Waiting, and 411 are also included.

Can you fax with a MagicJack?

Yes, you can send and receive faxes with an external fax machine.  What’s not as obvious is that you can also send/receive faxes using the same Windows PC that your MagicJack is plugged into.  It sounds hokey, but you need to run a phone cable from your fax/modem port to the MagicJack — yes you have a phone cable in two ports on the same computer.  From here, you would fax like you normally would from within Windows — just set up your fax as a new printer and “print” to it. So, you should be able to fax anything you can print including Microsoft Word docs, email, photos, drawings, whatever…

Will MagicJack run on Windows 7?

I have used our MagicJack on Windows XP, Vista, and Win 7 without any difficulty.  I did notice in XP, that while the jack was plugged in, there was an IP Telephony update listed in WindowsUpdate.  I installed this update and didn’t notice any difference good or bad. This was an “optional” update so those of you who have updates set to automatic might not get this one.

What are the drawbacks or disadvantages of using MagicJack?

This is a best effort service designed to run over residential broadband.  As a result, the voice quality is not equal to traditional phone service.  Additionally, MJ requires an active Internet connection and will not work if you lose access for any reason (including power loss).  Compare this to traditional phone service which gets its power from the TelCo central office and gives you a constant dial tone even if you lose power.

What’s the result?

I highly recommend MJ for personal use. Considering the price, it is very low risk. It is a great way to shave some money off your monthly utility bills. However, MJ does not offer any service level agreements (SLA) so it may not be a wise solution if you are running a business and require consistent voice quality.

Obviously you will need a series of photos from a single vantage point. You can have two photos up to as many as you like.
Here are some tips to remember when taking your photos:

• Make sure each photo in your series has a bit of overlap so the software will know where the stitching points are.  It is safer to have too much overlap than none at all.
• When taking the photos, try to keep your camera in the same position and at the same angle as you rotate. A tripod or monopod will help for larger shoots.
• If you have the know-how and a capable camera, set the exposure manually. Doing this will prevent different exposures on the various photos. If you don’t know what this means, then don’t worry about it – just shoot!

Let’s get started.
Open WLPG and find the photos you want to stitch together. Select these photos. As you can see in the screen shot below, I am using a series of seven photos from the interior of Boone Pickens Stadium. The photos were taken with a camera placed on my knee and span 180 degrees from end-zone to end-zone. (These are old photos from April, 2008 before construction was complete.)

 

From the menu, select MAKE > CREATE PANORAMIC PHOTO

This process could take a few seconds to a few minutes depending on how many photos you are trying to stitch together. After this process completes, you will be prompted to give your panorama a file type and name. This is the ONLY OPTION you have in the process.  The default file type is JPG which is sufficient for emailing, posting to Facebook, etc… However, if you wish to do serious editing or print this professionally you will need to save the image as a TIFF.  TIFF files are not compressed and are much larger than compressed JPG files. Typically, photo editing software gives you the option of how much compression to apply but for some reason it is a fixed level in this software. Remember, more compression equals more degradation of the original image.

That’s it!  Your image may have some strange edges as a result of the stiching processing compensating for the placement and angle of your camera. If you don’t like these edges then simply use WLPG or any other photo editor to crop it square.

What started as seven individual images from a camera balanced on my knee is now an end-zone to end-zone view of Boone Pickens Stadium.

Click here to see the panorama.

Tips:

• You can zoom in and out very quickly using the scroll wheel on your mouse.
• Use your arrow keys or mouse to navigate around.
• Since this is a 360, you can pan one direction continusoly as if you are spinning in a circle.

Way back in 2001-2002, Microsoft released a set of free utilities for XP called PowerToys. Theses were small, very useful programs. One of the best tools in the set was the Image Resizer. Once installed, you could right-click on any photo, click on Resize Image, then select one of the preset sizes or create a custom size. You could resize a single image or in batch within two quick clicks. Additionally, the utility would create copies of your images and not touch your originals. This was the perfect solution for posting photos to the web, sending emails, or any other time you didn’t need the full sized image out of the camera.

Fast forward to the Vista release in 2006, this functionality was not included in the box, and Microsoft didn’t produce new PowerToys. Now, there is an open source clone of the Image Resizer PowerToy that works on Vista and Windows 7. It is identical in nearly every way. If you run Vista or Win7 and need a simple way to resize images or photos check it out.  It doesn’t get easier or simpler than this:

Current “stable” release: http://www.codeplex.com/PhotoToysClone

Preview release of next version (I am using this without any issues): http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/releases/view/74953

Tip:  Resize multiple photos at once.

After you install this free program, perform the following steps:

1. Select the photos to resize*
2. Right-click on any of the selected photos
3. Select Resize Pictures
4. Select the size you want, then OK.  Within a few seconds you will have resized copies of your photos.

* Tip: How to select multiple files.

• To select ALL photos in a folder, hit CTRL-A on your keyboard.
• To select multiple individual photos, check out how to enable check boxes for file selection in Windows.

Commercial software is available for every conceivable use, but many of these applications come with a price tag which is too high for most home users or hobbyists. With this high price, typically come bloated features which will never be used by the average user. So, not only are you wasting money, but you are potentially eating valuable resources on your PC. The good news is that there are typically free alternatives with feature-sets that focus on the most common tasks for everyday users. This list will focus on free alternatives — some of which I have used, some I have not. This list will be updated regularly.

Let’s start with a software category I know very well. As co-owner of Gentry Photography in Tulsa, I spend a lot of time using different photo editing packages. Photoshop is the commercial standard, but is loaded with obscure features that I don’t even use. There are several free alternatives to Photoshop for an average home user:

• Not my favorite, but one of the most popular is The Gimp. Originally available only on Unix/Linux, and eventually ported to Windows, this open source project started as a student project at Berkley. This is a very popular tool among the open source crowd. It has evolved over the years but takes some time to figure your way around. The interface is a different than what you may be used to. It is worth looking into.
• Paint.Net started as a student project at Washington State University. It is a Windows only program written on the .Net platform. Paint.Net is extensible (meaning anyone can write plug-ins) and is very easy to use for hobbyist. This program is updated frequently and I recommend it to anyone wanting to get started with photo editing. Here’s a quick article I wrote on the new beta.
• Windows Live Photo Gallery is an excellent program for managing your massive collection of photos and videos. WLPG is part of Microsoft’s Live suite of software. This software automatically organizes your photos by date and directory, but it also allows you to assign tags to any group of photos. There are some basic photo correction options like auto-correct, red-eye, and cropping.  You can publish photos to Flickr and Facebook. It even has face detection and tries to “guess” at assigning names to faces.  It then keeps these names when you upload photos to Facebook. Perhaps the coolest feature, coming from Microsoft Research, is the ability to stitch multiple photos together to create a panoramic. You simply select the photos you want to stitch and WLPG does the rest. When you take the shots, you need to make sure portions of neighboring photos overlap. Yes, there are other programs, even Photoshop, that create panoramas, but you will not find one easier than this!
• Windows Media Center Edition is one of my favorite applications of all time. MCE is basically a 10-foot remote controlled interface (opposed to 12-inch mouse controlled) to all of your digital media. The primary feature is a built-in DVR, but it also gives you access to your videos, photos, radio, etc all on your TV. Media Center was introduced in 2004 in XP MCE and updated in core Vista and Win 7 versions. If you don’t have the ‘real’ Media Center, then you should check out Media Portal. This is a free application that runs on any Windows based PC. It offers many of the features that Windows MCE has including the remote controlled access to TV, DVR, Videos, Photos, etc.  To utilize TV and the DVR, you will need a TV Tuner. One cool feature that Media Portal has that the native Windows MCE does not, is the capability to ‘skin’ the look of the software via built-in themes.
• Windows Power Toys is a collection of free, small utilities from Microsoft which were not included in the XP core code, but there are no equivalents in Vista/Win7/Win8. There are several XP toys available, but these are my favorites:
  • Image Resizer. This is a must have for anyone with a digital camera. This simple utility allows you to resize an image from directly within Windows Explorer by simply right-clicking on the filename or icon. There are three preset sizes (small/medium/large) or you can create a custom size. The resizing is non-destructive, meaning it creates a copy and leaves the original file intact.
    • This was such a popular app, that someone created a free clone for Vista/Win7/Win8.
  • Alt-tab Replacement. Any proficient Windows user uses the alt-tab key combo to quickly switch among applications. I’ve used this shortcut since 1990 in Windows 3.0 and the functionality hasn’t changed since. As you alt-tab through your open apps, the name of the open program is displayed on-screen. This power toy enhances this function and places a mini screenshot of the running app. Very useful.
    • Win Vista and beyond, there is no need for this XP PowerToy.  Although Alt-Tab still works, newer versions of Windows give you the ‘Windows Key’ – Tab alternative.  This is known as Flip-3D and is very cool!
• Another product category I know well is email. In my past life I have been an email administrator for Fortune 500 companies and small businesses. I know Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino inside and out.  Outlook 2007 is an excellent program, but it is overkill for home use and it is definitely not free. Consider these alternatives:
  • Windows Live Mail. If you’re still using Outlook Express (XP and older) or Windows Mail (Vista) then you should consider replacing those apps with the new Windows Live Mail. It has support for multiple mails accounts, newsgroups, and RSS feeds. The look is fresh and has some great features like Photo Mail. The single feature that impresses me most is the junk mail filter. (I believe this is the same spam engine as the real Outlook.) I have mine set to “high” which means it captures anything that remotely looks like spam. You have the option to remove it instantly or quarantine it for review later. I don’t have actual numbers to back this up, but I would estimate that even on high, the false positive rate is less than 1%.  Live Mail also has white/black lists and anti-phishing technology.
  • Mozilla Thunderbird is the sister project to FireFox. It’s a good email client that I have used in the past, but it is starting to show its age. Thunderbird still has top-notch junk mail filtering. I can longer recommend Thunderbird.  It has become too stagnant and looks very old fashioned.
• Security software can be free too! If you pay for antivirus, then stop. Norton in particular is a resource hog. Having this on your PC will instantly slow you down. Remove any installations of Norton or McAfee (you’ll need the Norton removal tool) and consider one of these options:
  • My highest recommendation for free or paid anti malware is Microsoft Security Essentials.  This is a highly effective, efficient, free malware engine.  It updates itself daily and has no noticeable impact on performance.
  • AVG comes in free and premium versions. The free version is an excellent anti-virus tool which won’t bog you down . The premium upgrade includes anti-spyware and a firewall.
  • Same goes for AVAST. Both tools are well-written and have daily definition updates.
• Everyone has their favorite browser and it sometimes turns into a religious war. I’m not going to compare all the free browsers, but I will list some here:
  • Internet Explorer 7  was an OK browser, IE8 got much better, but IE9 is perhaps the best browser I have used. If you are still using anything less than IE9, then visit Windows Update and upgrade.  Pre IE9, I used IE for about 50% of my browsing followed by Firefox and Chrome.  With version 9,  IE now has 80% of my browsing.  There is very little reason not to use it.
  • FireFox is the open source favorite. Prior to IE8 I used FF almost exclusively. FireFox has somewhat of a resource hog, but newer versions have reduced the footprint somewhat. (My name is listed on the FireFox “Thank You” for some testing I did around 1999.)
  • Safari is Apple’s entry to the Windows browser market. Safari takes a minimalist approach and by design doesn’t include too many features. In fact, the look reminds of the old Netscape 3 browsers.
  • Chrome is another minimalist browser with regular updates.  If you like to inspect code, then Chrome has the best built-in inspector.

Just for fun, I restarted the three browsers listed here and loaded my homepage. This page has a good dose of JavaScript & PHP. IE7 is using 58.2MB of memory, last night’s build of FF3 is occupying 58.6 MB, and Safari 3.1 is the heaviest at nearly 61MB. I figured Safari would be the lightest. (Those are old versions that are now irrelevant)

• Backup Software
  • SyncBack is a free backup/synchronization tool. I use this utility to schedule backups of my wife’s photo work. This is very easy to use and can handle about any type of backup job you can conceive.
  • There is a class of “cloud” services that host your backups securely on the Internet. There are all kinds of new features and pricing models available. One such serivce is Microsoft’s SkyDrive. Currently, they are giving users 5GB of free online storage. One benefit of hosted services is the ability to access your files from any Internet accessible computer, including your mobile devices.
  • While not free, Mozy and Carbonite should be considered as full backup solutions.  These are agent based, run in the background, and silently backup your data to the cloud.
• Everyone seems to be looking for good DVD rippers. I’m sure you guys only use this software to make backups of your personal DVDs, right?
  • Although it is old, DVD DeCrypter is the defacto standard. Lots of options, but lots of people have published pages on how to use it.
  • DVDFab is also a nice tool to use when Decrypter won’t rip those dual layer discs. There is a free version and a premium. The premium has presets to rip to IPod, Zune, PSP, etc..
• My recommendation for free web publishing software is WordPress.  It’s not just for blogs anymore.  WordPress now handles static pages as easily as it does blog posts.  In fact, I am building Gentry’s new website on it.  It’s free. It’s widely used.  And there are tons of plug ins available to practically anything you want.  The biggest drawback is the content editor doesn’t allow for as rich documents as I want.  However, I am willing to live with this considering all its other strengths.

There’s a lot more coming including blog tools, audio/video editing, backup software, etc. If I left off your favorite tool let me know and I’ll add it.

Along with the normal bug fixes and enhancements, is a noticeable UI clean-up. If you’ve ever used Paint.Net in the past you undoubtedly noticed the large dialog boxes that sometimes extend beyond your screen. The author has done a good job cleaning up these boxes. Check out this example comparison below. In the top image, is the old UI. You can can see all the ugly “Reset” buttons eating up space.  In the bottom image, the buttons have been replaced and moved to gie the UI a much cleaner look. The are screen-shots running on XP. Paint.net has a much”fresher” look running on Vista.