You've upgraded to a new computer or maybe replaced that old monitor with a shiny new LCD monitor. Congratulations! So much of our daily life is spent using a computer, that we like to have the newest things we can. It definitely makes a difference to your working life. You will notice a difference with the speed at which you can do things and also the overall appearance of … [Read more...]
Clean up your Context Menu
The context menu (what pops up when you right-click) is one of the most popular items to clutter; a lot of programs will add their shortcuts or filetypes to the menu when they get installed. It's also a very under-used, convenient location that you could put your frequently used functions and shortcuts. This post should show you how to tame the context menu and make it work for … [Read more...]
Improving Vista File Search
Configuration One of the coolest features of Vista, which is now somewhat available for Windows XP, is the search feature. With background indexing, there's no denying that Vista's search functionality is zippy, faster than Windows Search ever was before. Along with the fact that the animated creatures are gone (the dog by default, "Goodbye Clippy 2.0"), Vista's file search is … [Read more...]
How to Add Virtual Machines in Server 2008’s Hyper-V
If you're running Windows Server 2008, there's a cool feature that you might not be taking advantage of yet. Microsoft's answer to VMware's success is it's own hypervisor for virtual machines called Hyper-V. Hyper-V is included in Server 08, but you'll want to run Windows Update before you install the role as there is a much improved version over the beta version that shipped … [Read more...]
Deploying Java through Group Policy and Java RE Improvements
To push Java out through a Group Policy, you'll need to get the installation as an .msi. Fortunately, the installer that you can download from Java is an executable wrapped around a .msi. We'll be able to use this to deploy the software. Tip: Download the Java RE from java.sun.com instead of java.com to get the package without the Yahoo! Toolbar. The installer from … [Read more...]