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Archive for category Software

Enable DreamScene in Vista Home Premium

May 7

Posted by Tejas in Bargains, Computers, Software, Tech News | 8 Comments

For those of you who have Vista Home Premium and are jealous of those folks that have Vista Ultimate because of among other things the whole DreamScene spectacle, never fear because enterprising “hackers” are here.

While browsing the Usenet via Google groups I came across a post by someone with a link to a ZIP file containing some DLLs, a registry import and quite detailed instructions. Figuring it’s worth giving a shot I tried it on my Vista Home Premium install and sure enough it works!

Now this doesn’t allow you to subsequently install Deskscapes as you can on Ultimate but you can use any WMV and/or MPEG video file and set it as your background. Some scouring on the internet will land you a few samples and for those videographers it’s a great opportunity to showcase your handy work.

So without further ado here’s the link to the file.

DISCLAIMER: Read the instructions carefully – do not attempt this unless you are comfortable making changes to system files and the registry.

Microsoft, Lenovo Launch “Pay As You Go” Computer

May 23

Posted by Tejas in Computers, Software | No Comments

Microsoft Corp. and Chinese-based computer maker Lenovo said Monday they will launch market trials for pay-as-you-go purchases of computers in China and India. Consumers will be able to purchase a Lenovo PC for about half its retail price and pay off the balance over time by purchasing pre-paid cards from Lenovo.

Sounds like a good idea at first but they haven’t clearly stipulated what happens when your “balance” runs out? What if you run out of your balance in the middle of something important and you have no way to get a new pre-paid card at that time…will the PC allow you to save everything you’re working on? What happens if something is due? Worst case what if you only need 5 more mins to complete something and your balance runs out.

Should lead to some interesting situations for sure

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Preview your open tasks in Windows XP

May 18

Posted by Tejas in Software | No Comments

Free Visual Task Tips. Hover over open or closed tasks in your task bar and get the image of whats going on in that program. Really cool. A function that has been on OSX for quite some time. Now on Win Xp and being tested on Vista.

A great download and highly recommended. Click read more to link to the site which is pretty self-explanatory using pictures what it does. It’s a great feature that you wish you’d always had and is priceless for people who keep more than one application open in Windows – which would be almost everyone.

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Hardware requirements for Windows Vista officially announced

May 18

Posted by Tejas in Software | 3 Comments

Microsoft today revealed the minimum specifications for Windows Vista, in two tiers: “Vista Capable” and “Premium Ready.” And as usual, the emphasis is on minimum.

I was actually, after all the hype, expecting Vista’s requirements to be higher than what was announced. Most people who bought a somewhat decent PC in the last 2 years should have enough CPU horsepower and RAM for the new OS.

One item which WILL require most people to upgrade though is the video card requirements. I’m ok but that’s because I did spend about $400 last summer on an ATI X800XL 256MB card, but nowadays most budget PCs come with internal graphics which won’t do you any good with Vista if you want to see all the special effects.

What I’m curious about is if they’re going to announce separate specs for laptops/notebooks. Not many notebooks out there with 128MB of video RAM!

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