In the past most of us have used fancy 3rd party tools for our multimedia needs within Windows. Isn’t it about time we actually used the tools that already come with our operating system? Windows 7 has many multimedia enhancements and today we are going to talk about using the Windows 7 DVD Maker. With the Windows 7 DVD Maker we can make professional looking DVDs from our home movie clips. To get started go to Start > Programs > Windows DVD Maker. Then click on add items. Browse your video library and select the clips you would like to work with. Once you add them to the DVD Maker you can...

What if you are working away on your computer and suddenly your aunt calls and says that her computer has a virus and wants you to wave your magic wand, through the telephone line and make it all better? Well, you would probably do the same thing I did and start walking her through the steps to download and run some virus scan and malware protection software. I even went as far as running the scan on my system too, so that I could actually walk her through each step. Imagine the terror in my eyes when something in the process made my computer crash, hang, and refuse to boot. Fortunately, there is...

I was going to call this post, Productivity or Fascism? I spent years working for a company that had all games turned off by default and I only had access to the Company Intranet. This company had successfully removed any remote possibility of enjoying work while using their computers. Windows 7 has the most bells and whistles of any desktop operating system, yet in order to push the powerful business capabilities of Windows 7, games have been turned off by default. Take heart my fellow drones, the games can easily be turned back on. Couple this with a high-speed processor and broadband, and Windows 7...

This is the last article in my series on virtualization using Windows 7. With Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate, you have the option of running XP mode. Based on virtualization technology using Windows Virtual PC you can have a virtual XP environment to run your legacy applications. Why is XP mode only available with the Ultimate and Professional versions of Windows 7? Because Windows 7 already has a built in compatibility feature which should enable most home users to automatically run their older applications. XP mode is designed specifically for legacy business applications, which usually have...

Windows 7 has a lot of new or improved features. One of my new favorite features is the Sticky Notes – they are not only useful but they are fun to work with. You can find Sticky Notes from the start menu. These can be used to create notes and reminders. You can drag them around your desktop and re-size them to your heart’s content. They will stretch as you write and best of all they look like just like Post It Notes. You can even right click on them to change the color. If you would like to clear the notes from your desktop; right click the notes icon in the task-bar and click on close,...

This is my second article in my series on Virtual PCs. Last time I talked about installing Virtual PC 2007 on Vista. Today I installed Windows 7 Enterprise on this Virtual PC. If you are involved in the IT industry and would like to test Windows 7 Enterprise you can download an evaluation copy until December 31st 2010. If you haven’t already installed Virtual PC 2007 you can get it here. Now I would like to talk a little bit about installing and configuring in general. Often times when it comes to computers there are several ways to do different things. It is also true that depending on your...