Latest stuff from Apple's last Macworld outing.
Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard
Greatest stuff ever i must say. Whoosh.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
-- Nokia N97
N96 was never meant to be Nokia's flagship phone with its mediocre feature upgrade from N95, always sitting on a wobbly throne.
At last, Nokia unveils the "dethroner" - an N series ofcoz, S60 5th edition (touch screen os, like 5800 Xpress Music), and a slide-out keyboard.
Now THIS, is the introduction that should have been, for a Nokia touchscreen. Not like the crappy 5800 ones.
I like the fact that Nokia chose the path of making the main screen a desktop-like experience, with its widgets (clock etc) and to do stuffs, more like Windows Mobile than say, the rows of icons of iPhone.
As an N series, you can expect the usual stuffs (and better) since N95. So i won't bother mentioning all of them. Notable ones however are...
Full specs at >> http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n97-2615.php
And... ofcoz, some pre-prepared "hands-on" video...
At last, Nokia unveils the "dethroner" - an N series ofcoz, S60 5th edition (touch screen os, like 5800 Xpress Music), and a slide-out keyboard.
Now THIS, is the introduction that should have been, for a Nokia touchscreen. Not like the crappy 5800 ones.
I like the fact that Nokia chose the path of making the main screen a desktop-like experience, with its widgets (clock etc) and to do stuffs, more like Windows Mobile than say, the rows of icons of iPhone.
As an N series, you can expect the usual stuffs (and better) since N95. So i won't bother mentioning all of them. Notable ones however are...
- 360 x 640 pixels, 3.5 inches, 16M colors touchscreen
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- 32 GB internal memory
- 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9-18.3 mm
- 150 g (beefy as expected)
Full specs at >> http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n97-2615.php
And... ofcoz, some pre-prepared "hands-on" video...
-- Mapple
The Simpsons' latest episode parodied everything Apple - from Steve Mobs, to Mipod, Mytunes, Myphone... and their legion of fans. It's so true till i have to 
...
The screen crash is a parody of Apple's own Mac ad, back in 1984...
The irony is, Apple really does have a legion of mindless humans now, who suck up everything Apple... oh, what a dream come true.
...The screen crash is a parody of Apple's own Mac ad, back in 1984...
The irony is, Apple really does have a legion of mindless humans now, who suck up everything Apple... oh, what a dream come true.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
-- YouTube widens (Edit: Nov 27)
YouTube videos now display in widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio. To be precise, it's 640x360 resolution (thought the height might be resized to fit the original video's height).
[On another note, there's also a HD 1280x720 resolution version for a while now. NO, it's not HQ, it's much better. And clicking on the HQ link won't get you this either. More info on this at the end.]
About time I'd say, black bars at the top, and too much wasted empty space at website's sides. But to tell the truth, most videos still aren't widescreen (esp home videos). But professionally produced videos like movie trailers, game trailers, n most animes are in widescreen now... so it's better to move on.
Announced here >> http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=0i22UDAOfj8
But one more thing... the embed code still defaults to 4:3 aspect ratio.
So... what to do but manually adjust them... though it's not exactly 16:9, hehe.
And to commemorate this, i've digged out these 4 MVs that are available in HQ.
02 给我一首歌的时间 (Spare me a song's worth of time)
This one reeks of Usher... ugh. But his moves were smooth and the song itself is my favorite. Female lead is the same one from 阳光宅男 (Sunny Otaku).
03 蛇舞 (Snake dance)
The "Queen" is Lara from 南拳媽媽. Also duet-ed with Jay in 珊瑚海 (Coral sea). I expected this video to be "hotter"... oh well. Check out the "蛇" character when it appears at the beginning and the end... haha, very cute.
06 说好的幸福呢 (Where is our promised happiness?)
Poor female lead had to run around barefooted in the cold weather (a storm was approaching when the filming of MV took place). Gotta love the decos around the piano.
11 稻香 (Paddy fragrance)
And so far only 01 龙战骑士 (Dragon Warriors), 04 花海 (Flower ocean) and 08 流浪诗人 (Wandering poet) are left without MVs. The others are readily searchable at YouTube.
Check out...
YouTube HD
To link to a video that is HD 1280x720, just append "&fmt=22" to the end of a YouTube link. And for those who don't know yet, add "&fmt=18" to link to HQ.
For example...
Just look at the Japanese characters when fullscreened, they don't lose any details at all. It looks better than normal divx/xvid .avi version. THIS, is the result of using H.264 codec.
And how about... zombies...? Left4Dead's AWESOME intro movie from the game itself, in HD. Turn off the lights, plop in your headphones, watch it full screen!!!!
Oyeah.
[On another note, there's also a HD 1280x720 resolution version for a while now. NO, it's not HQ, it's much better. And clicking on the HQ link won't get you this either. More info on this at the end.]
About time I'd say, black bars at the top, and too much wasted empty space at website's sides. But to tell the truth, most videos still aren't widescreen (esp home videos). But professionally produced videos like movie trailers, game trailers, n most animes are in widescreen now... so it's better to move on.
Announced here >> http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=0i22UDAOfj8
But one more thing... the embed code still defaults to 4:3 aspect ratio.
So... what to do but manually adjust them... though it's not exactly 16:9, hehe.
And to commemorate this, i've digged out these 4 MVs that are available in HQ.
02 给我一首歌的时间 (Spare me a song's worth of time)
This one reeks of Usher... ugh. But his moves were smooth and the song itself is my favorite. Female lead is the same one from 阳光宅男 (Sunny Otaku).
03 蛇舞 (Snake dance)
The "Queen" is Lara from 南拳媽媽. Also duet-ed with Jay in 珊瑚海 (Coral sea). I expected this video to be "hotter"... oh well. Check out the "蛇" character when it appears at the beginning and the end... haha, very cute.
06 说好的幸福呢 (Where is our promised happiness?)
Poor female lead had to run around barefooted in the cold weather (a storm was approaching when the filming of MV took place). Gotta love the decos around the piano.
11 稻香 (Paddy fragrance)
And so far only 01 龙战骑士 (Dragon Warriors), 04 花海 (Flower ocean) and 08 流浪诗人 (Wandering poet) are left without MVs. The others are readily searchable at YouTube.
Check out...
- 05 魔术先生 (Mr. Magician) and 10 乔克叔叔 (Uncle Joker). They are "back to back" MVs, since these two follow the Magician vs Joker theme, and share the same stage in the MV, literally. Watch Jay flirt with chicks in 乔克叔叔 and also dressed up as a clown, swinging around.
- 07 兰亭序 (Preface to the Orchid Pavilion) is a disappointment from 青花瓷 (Blue and White Porcelain), 发如雪 (Hair like snow), and 东风破 (East wind breaks) due to its simplicity. White background!! Simple sets!!? nooo...
- 09 时光机 (Time machine) is another interesting one. Featuring the main characters from Doraemon (except the robotic cat himself) and the drawer time machine. VERY cute!!
YouTube HD
To link to a video that is HD 1280x720, just append "&fmt=22" to the end of a YouTube link. And for those who don't know yet, add "&fmt=18" to link to HQ.
For example...
- Original link >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62io5Jj-QaI
- HQ link >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62io5Jj-QaI&fmt=18
- HD link >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62io5Jj-QaI&fmt=22
- Most videos aren't 1280x720 ofcoz, adding "&fmt=22" won't give u HD, and it will default to the low quality ver.
- Watch these videos fullscreen!!!
- Older processors might struggle with playing these videos.
Just look at the Japanese characters when fullscreened, they don't lose any details at all. It looks better than normal divx/xvid .avi version. THIS, is the result of using H.264 codec.
And how about... zombies...? Left4Dead's AWESOME intro movie from the game itself, in HD. Turn off the lights, plop in your headphones, watch it full screen!!!!
Oyeah.
Friday, November 21, 2008
-- Lil update on myself
Got lazy to update for a while... since there's just so many things to do during the holidays... 
Reason 1, Company of Heroes: Gold Edition (which includes the expansion).
Original... and... only Rm39.90!!??
You don't get it this cheap anywhere else!! Even on Steam it's $29.90.
It's only 1 year old, and it's one of the best RTS out there... can't get any better than this.
The distributor for this is Replay Interactive, a Singapore company. How did they managed to convince THQ to reduce it to this price is a wonder to me...
Have it delivered to you by...
PC Game.com >> http://www.pcgame.com.my/product_info.php?products_id=2243&osCsid=1c1688d0fdea76ca569f998bc5e239be (where i bought) or
The Software Boutique >> http://www.tsb.com.my/product.cfm?id=522
Reason 2, Left 4 Dead.
A zombie apocalypse game, where you and 3 other mates (AI or real human) wade and gun through zombies to get rescued.
The DEMO itself is already so addictive that i managed to clock lots of hours a day from it's 7-day only demo release. The co-op online play is just amazing...
From the makers of Half-life - VALVe.
But the actual team amongst VALVe that developed it is Turtle Rock Studios, i think, which are the original makers of Counter Strike.
The 4 Survivors. Bill, Louis, Francis, and Zoey.
Back facing a wall is better than back getting ripped by zombies...
Zombie "boss" - Witch.
Nicknamed - emogirl, coz you can hear her weep when approaching... together with creepy music.
Zombie "boss" - Hunter.
Leaps from faraway and pins you down, and rips your guts out... literally.
Reason 3, I'm designing a new look for this blog. About time.
Reason 1, Company of Heroes: Gold Edition (which includes the expansion).
Original... and... only Rm39.90!!??
You don't get it this cheap anywhere else!! Even on Steam it's $29.90.
It's only 1 year old, and it's one of the best RTS out there... can't get any better than this.
The distributor for this is Replay Interactive, a Singapore company. How did they managed to convince THQ to reduce it to this price is a wonder to me...
Have it delivered to you by...
PC Game.com >> http://www.pcgame.com.my/product_info.php?products_id=2243&osCsid=1c1688d0fdea76ca569f998bc5e239be (where i bought) or
The Software Boutique >> http://www.tsb.com.my/product.cfm?id=522
Reason 2, Left 4 Dead.
A zombie apocalypse game, where you and 3 other mates (AI or real human) wade and gun through zombies to get rescued.The DEMO itself is already so addictive that i managed to clock lots of hours a day from it's 7-day only demo release. The co-op online play is just amazing...
From the makers of Half-life - VALVe.
But the actual team amongst VALVe that developed it is Turtle Rock Studios, i think, which are the original makers of Counter Strike.
The 4 Survivors. Bill, Louis, Francis, and Zoey.
Back facing a wall is better than back getting ripped by zombies...
Zombie "boss" - Witch.
Nicknamed - emogirl, coz you can hear her weep when approaching... together with creepy music.
Zombie "boss" - Hunter.
Leaps from faraway and pins you down, and rips your guts out... literally.
Reason 3, I'm designing a new look for this blog
. About time.
Friday, November 07, 2008
-- Windows 7 (edited Nov 9)
Windows 7 is the next windows after Windows Vista, which will probably be available late 2009 or early 2010.
If you're thinking it's too soon for a new one, it's just that the period of development till the release of Vista from XP took too long (7 years). Try thinking back to the Windows 95-2000 era... oh yeah.
So what's to be excited about Windows 7? Think Windows Vista done right, not Vista SP3 (Vista SP2 will be released next year). Lots of juicy details was revealed about the next Windows at PDC 2008 (Professional Developers Conference).
Images taken from:
Neowin's PDC coverage >> http://www.neowin.net/news/category/live/pdc (videos too) and
Paul Thurrott's Windows 7 previews >> http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/
If you're expecting heavy visual changes like XP to Vista, then no, it's not happening. Windows 7 is mainly focused on polishing up Vista on the surface, as Vista already brought major changes under the hood too (which brought many compatibility issues).
Revamped Taskbar and Notification Area (system tray)
As you can see from the image above, the major visual (and usability) change is the taskbar in Windows 7. It's thicker, and uses icons only, and comes with an improved system tray.
Edited: 9 Nov. Partly as a reply to WenDi,
Just to show how un-docky the taskbar is (it's dubbed the Superbar now actually), here's how it can look like.
Small icons, with text labels. You wouldn't notice it's the new taskbar wouldn't you?
Other than the window previews, there's a progress bar integrated into the icon "box" too.
Definitely not a blatant dock copy.
Start button and menu
Let's take a look from left to right, starting with the Start button and menu.
The Start button gets some animation. The 4 colors actually "glows out" when moused over (there's a video of this later under Jump List).
In Windows 7's Start menu, you can now add your own shortcuts to the RIGHT SIDE (the blackish transparent part), like Videos for example (which went missing in Vista).
The Search function in the Start menu now displays the results in the whole Start menu, instead of just at the left side in Vista.
Taskbar icons
And to (simply) clarify the next few icons to the right. Icons without borders sit at there like Quick Launch shortcuts. But once started up, there is a border to indicate it is a running application (akin to the blob under the icon in a Dock).
And in a case of multiple opened windows, the border becomes layered as seen directly above. And in Internet Explorer's case, multiple tabs.
New Window Previews
Here are the window previews brought over from Vista (which is one of Aero's features), but improved upon.
Since windows from the same application are grouped together now, there is a need to differentiate them from the taskbar.
>> In Vista, if "group similar taskbar buttons" is used, when you hover your pointer, you get this stacked thumbnail (seen on the right). Which is useless and makes it hard to manage the grouped windows (and why i don't use this option).
In Windows 7, there are multiple previews as seen above. And to differentiate more, there are text labels above the preview. AND... the thumbnails are there to be clicked on.
And as you can see at the example above, it's Internet Explorer (IE8 to be exact) with multiple previews, and those previews are taken from IE8's opened tabs, not because of multiple IE8 running. Nice integration... which hopefully Firefox can make use of. (though i question what will happen if there are more than 10 tabs opened, which is normal these days).
These certainly eased my worries of ditching trusty old taskbar into something dock-ish... which IMHO, is more suitable as a application launcher only. And well... it gets better than this!!! a continuation of Window Previews below...
Window Previews with Aero Peek
In Vista, Aero was clearly underused (the most useful being the live previews). With Aero Peek, Microsoft made good use of transparency together with the window previews. Which is...
Pausing over the thumbnail brings the window forward. Ofcoz, best explained through the video, below.
Really well thought out i must say.
Jump List
A new feature to Windows 7 is Jump List. Jump List contains commonly used features or in Paul Thurrott's words "commonly-needed actions that are associated with the object you're clicking".
Windows 7 -savvy apps (like WMP12 down there) are able to put in more specific applications task while non-savvy ones still get a default list of actions. I'll have to see how this one turns out for normal apps.
To pull up a Jump List, just right click on an icon. Jump List are also available at the Start menu (it expands into the right side of the Start menu) and System Tray too. Take a look at the video below.
Taskbar Colored Hovering
And adding on some subtle difference when hovering over the icons...
Pretty cool.
Windows Media Player thumbnail toolbar
Less reason to bring up WMP, but useless for those already using WMP taskbar toolbar and those that don't use WMP.
I'm hoping Microsoft allows other applications to add in this kind of feature.
Though if you can't wait for Windows 7, you can shuffle the buttons NOW with this free app here >> http://nerdcave.webs.com/taskbarshuffle.htm. Windows Vista/XP/2000/NT/95/98 supported.
Taskbar buttons sorting allowed (at last!!)
You can now sort the icons around according to your liking. I thought I would be able to sort around taskbar buttons in Vista... pfft... it's a wonder how this feature didn't struck Microsoft's mind earlier.
Though if you want sorting of taskbar buttons are tray icons NOW, grab Taskbar Shuffle >> http://nerdcave.webs.com/taskbarshuffle.htm
Notification Area improvement
[The official name for system tray is Notification Area... believe it. But for the sake of familiarity (myself included), i'll use system tray instead.]
Since connecting to a network is very much a part of our lives now, there's now a Jump List for quickly connecting to a network instead of needing a new window to select.
Also, to clamp down on system tray icons cluttering the taskbar. There's only 4 icons by default - Action Center (new to Windows 7, which is used to troubleshoot problems), Power, Network, and Volume. New icons are not displayed by default.
The option to change the behaviour is at "Control Panel > Notification Area Icons", where you can choose to - Show icon and notifications, Hide icon and notifications, and Show only notifications. You can also choose to display all icons as before ofcoz.
I'm liking this. Check out the short video below.
Desktop Gadgets
Vista's Sidebar is no more, and all the Gadgets are dropped on to the desktop straightaway (not that you can't pull the gadgets out of the Sidebar and on to the desktop already using Vista). Good riddance. Sidebar eats up too much precious workspace... but i still won't use it even if there's no Sidebar.
Windows XP users who want these kind of gadgets on their desktop can use Avedesk.
But to tell the truth, I wish Microsoft could've given a choice to hide gadget in another layer, like Mac OS's Dashboard. And Dashboard sure could use an option of leaving the gadgets on the desktop.
Now that the gadgets are at the desktop, there's a new feature to "peek into the desktop". Just mouse over the vertical rectangle beside the time and date...
...and the opened windows goes transparent. Click on the rectangle, and it'll "Show Desktop".
Just a fancy way show the desktop, but i think it's less jarring to have the window borders still there just take a peek, as opposed to Win-key + D keyboard shortcut.
Peek into Desktop in action...
I wish the fading animation would take longer so that it's less jarring.
And at here, i got lazy to write the other new stuffs coming to Windows 7, like...
very excited about it already.
Snap to Side
Talking bout native multi-touch support, there's this really useful feature called snap to side that is demonstrated together with touch in this video.
If it's not clear enough, this is what happened - drag a window to the top of your display, and it maximizes ; drag a window to the left of the display and it "docks", eating 50% of your screen ; drag to right, and it'll eat away the other 50%.
Really useful in some work related scenarios.
Aero Shake
And there's this little feature that wasn't demonstrated at all at PDC 2008...
Grab an active window, give it a shake, and all other non-active windows will minimize away. Hopefully there's a keyboard shortcut for this like Mac OS.
And as you can see in the video, you can have text beside the new bigger taskbar icons too, once launched.
If you're thinking it's too soon for a new one, it's just that the period of development till the release of Vista from XP took too long (7 years). Try thinking back to the Windows 95-2000 era... oh yeah.
So what's to be excited about Windows 7? Think Windows Vista done right, not Vista SP3 (Vista SP2 will be released next year). Lots of juicy details was revealed about the next Windows at PDC 2008 (Professional Developers Conference).
Images taken from:
Neowin's PDC coverage >> http://www.neowin.net/news/category/live/pdc (videos too) and
Paul Thurrott's Windows 7 previews >> http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/
If you're expecting heavy visual changes like XP to Vista, then no, it's not happening. Windows 7 is mainly focused on polishing up Vista on the surface, as Vista already brought major changes under the hood too (which brought many compatibility issues).
Revamped Taskbar and Notification Area (system tray)
As you can see from the image above, the major visual (and usability) change is the taskbar in Windows 7. It's thicker, and uses icons only, and comes with an improved system tray.
- From a purely Windows user perspective, the new Taskbar is some sort of a Quick Launch + classic Taskbar + group similar taskbar buttons combined.
- For Mac OS users, the new Taskbar works like a Dock, but with a very well thought out window previews (improvement from Vista) as you will see later.
(to be more specific, there are no widgets and magnify ofcoz) - For Linux users, the thickness makes it looks very much like KDE... and the similarity ends there, lol.
Edited: 9 Nov. Partly as a reply to WenDi,
Just to show how un-docky the taskbar is (it's dubbed the Superbar now actually), here's how it can look like.
Small icons, with text labels. You wouldn't notice it's the new taskbar wouldn't you?
Other than the window previews, there's a progress bar integrated into the icon "box" too.
Definitely not a blatant dock copy.
Start button and menu
Let's take a look from left to right, starting with the Start button and menu.
The Start button gets some animation. The 4 colors actually "glows out" when moused over (there's a video of this later under Jump List).
In Windows 7's Start menu, you can now add your own shortcuts to the RIGHT SIDE (the blackish transparent part), like Videos for example (which went missing in Vista).
The Search function in the Start menu now displays the results in the whole Start menu, instead of just at the left side in Vista.
Taskbar icons
And to (simply) clarify the next few icons to the right. Icons without borders sit at there like Quick Launch shortcuts. But once started up, there is a border to indicate it is a running application (akin to the blob under the icon in a Dock).
And in a case of multiple opened windows, the border becomes layered as seen directly above. And in Internet Explorer's case, multiple tabs.
New Window Previews
Here are the window previews brought over from Vista (which is one of Aero's features), but improved upon.
Since windows from the same application are grouped together now, there is a need to differentiate them from the taskbar.>> In Vista, if "group similar taskbar buttons" is used, when you hover your pointer, you get this stacked thumbnail (seen on the right). Which is useless and makes it hard to manage the grouped windows (and why i don't use this option).
In Windows 7, there are multiple previews as seen above. And to differentiate more, there are text labels above the preview. AND... the thumbnails are there to be clicked on.
And as you can see at the example above, it's Internet Explorer (IE8 to be exact) with multiple previews, and those previews are taken from IE8's opened tabs, not because of multiple IE8 running. Nice integration... which hopefully Firefox can make use of. (though i question what will happen if there are more than 10 tabs opened, which is normal these days).
These certainly eased my worries of ditching trusty old taskbar into something dock-ish... which IMHO, is more suitable as a application launcher only. And well... it gets better than this!!! a continuation of Window Previews below...
Window Previews with Aero Peek
In Vista, Aero was clearly underused (the most useful being the live previews). With Aero Peek, Microsoft made good use of transparency together with the window previews. Which is...
Pausing over the thumbnail brings the window forward. Ofcoz, best explained through the video, below.
Really well thought out i must say.
Jump List
A new feature to Windows 7 is Jump List. Jump List contains commonly used features or in Paul Thurrott's words "commonly-needed actions that are associated with the object you're clicking".
Windows 7 -savvy apps (like WMP12 down there) are able to put in more specific applications task while non-savvy ones still get a default list of actions. I'll have to see how this one turns out for normal apps.
To pull up a Jump List, just right click on an icon. Jump List are also available at the Start menu (it expands into the right side of the Start menu) and System Tray too. Take a look at the video below.
Taskbar Colored Hovering
And adding on some subtle difference when hovering over the icons...
Pretty cool.
Windows Media Player thumbnail toolbar
Less reason to bring up WMP, but useless for those already using WMP taskbar toolbar and those that don't use WMP.
I'm hoping Microsoft allows other applications to add in this kind of feature.
Though if you can't wait for Windows 7, you can shuffle the buttons NOW with this free app here >> http://nerdcave.webs.com/taskbarshuffle.htm. Windows Vista/XP/2000/NT/95/98 supported.
Taskbar buttons sorting allowed (at last!!)
You can now sort the icons around according to your liking. I thought I would be able to sort around taskbar buttons in Vista... pfft... it's a wonder how this feature didn't struck Microsoft's mind earlier.
Though if you want sorting of taskbar buttons are tray icons NOW, grab Taskbar Shuffle >> http://nerdcave.webs.com/taskbarshuffle.htm
Notification Area improvement
[The official name for system tray is Notification Area... believe it. But for the sake of familiarity (myself included), i'll use system tray instead.]
Since connecting to a network is very much a part of our lives now, there's now a Jump List for quickly connecting to a network instead of needing a new window to select.
Also, to clamp down on system tray icons cluttering the taskbar. There's only 4 icons by default - Action Center (new to Windows 7, which is used to troubleshoot problems), Power, Network, and Volume. New icons are not displayed by default.
The option to change the behaviour is at "Control Panel > Notification Area Icons", where you can choose to - Show icon and notifications, Hide icon and notifications, and Show only notifications. You can also choose to display all icons as before ofcoz.
I'm liking this. Check out the short video below.
Desktop Gadgets
Vista's Sidebar is no more, and all the Gadgets are dropped on to the desktop straightaway (not that you can't pull the gadgets out of the Sidebar and on to the desktop already using Vista). Good riddance. Sidebar eats up too much precious workspace... but i still won't use it even if there's no Sidebar.
Windows XP users who want these kind of gadgets on their desktop can use Avedesk.
But to tell the truth, I wish Microsoft could've given a choice to hide gadget in another layer, like Mac OS's Dashboard. And Dashboard sure could use an option of leaving the gadgets on the desktop.
Now that the gadgets are at the desktop, there's a new feature to "peek into the desktop". Just mouse over the vertical rectangle beside the time and date...
...and the opened windows goes transparent. Click on the rectangle, and it'll "Show Desktop".
Just a fancy way show the desktop, but i think it's less jarring to have the window borders still there just take a peek, as opposed to Win-key + D keyboard shortcut.
Peek into Desktop in action...
I wish the fading animation would take longer so that it's less jarring.
And at here, i got lazy to write the other new stuffs coming to Windows 7, like...
- new "My Documents" which will be called Libraries (e.g. Pictures Library, Videos Library), together with the new Homegroup for easier file sharing across a network.
(Yes, it'll be a pain in the arse for those who just learned Vista's folder structure) - Device Stage, so that I don't have to use NOKIA PC Suite anymore.
- new lightweight WMP12,
- improved and added features for Calculator,
- Wordpad and Paint gets the ribbon called Scenic Ribbon, like Office 2007.
- Native multi-touch support and also improved hand writing recognition (think writing down a calculation and it'll calculate for you), which will give more power to tablets.
very excited about it already.
Snap to Side
Talking bout native multi-touch support, there's this really useful feature called snap to side that is demonstrated together with touch in this video.
If it's not clear enough, this is what happened - drag a window to the top of your display, and it maximizes ; drag a window to the left of the display and it "docks", eating 50% of your screen ; drag to right, and it'll eat away the other 50%.
Really useful in some work related scenarios.
Aero Shake
And there's this little feature that wasn't demonstrated at all at PDC 2008...
Grab an active window, give it a shake, and all other non-active windows will minimize away. Hopefully there's a keyboard shortcut for this like Mac OS.
And as you can see in the video, you can have text beside the new bigger taskbar icons too, once launched.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
-- F***king click!
Looks like dumping dedicated buttons on the new MacBooks was a bad idea. Some people are reporting that the click is not registering, or it being inconsistent.
I myself thought it was brilliant having such a huge touchpad... but meh... i was wrong.
>> http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/05/apple-probably-prepping-a-patch-for-mysterious-clicking-issue/
On the other hand...
Justin Long at a table with piles of cash on it.
MAC: "I'm sorting out my finances. Mock Vista, mock Vista, mock Vista... fix launch problems. Mock Vista, mock Vista, mock Vista"
PC: "It seems everything you've launched this year has had problems."
MAC: "You're right - I'd better put it all into mocking Vista"
[Justin Long is the Mac guy in the Mac vs PC ads if you didn't know. Joke from a poster at Engadget. Brilliant one i say]
I myself thought it was brilliant having such a huge touchpad... but meh... i was wrong.
>> http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/05/apple-probably-prepping-a-patch-for-mysterious-clicking-issue/
On the other hand...
Justin Long at a table with piles of cash on it.
MAC: "I'm sorting out my finances. Mock Vista, mock Vista, mock Vista... fix launch problems. Mock Vista, mock Vista, mock Vista"
PC: "It seems everything you've launched this year has had problems."
MAC: "You're right - I'd better put it all into mocking Vista"
[Justin Long is the Mac guy in the Mac vs PC ads if you didn't know. Joke from a poster at Engadget. Brilliant one i say]
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