I was printing in Photoshop and I got a Scratch Disk Full error.

Question: What is the Photoshop Scratch Disk? How Do You Fix "Scratch Disk Full" Errors?

Answer: The Photoshop Scratch Disk is referencing the virtual memory or memory swap space on your hard drive when your system does not have enough RAM to perform an operation. You can change drives that are being used for your scratch drive and if you use a second drive other than the one your operating system is on for your scratch drive it should run more efficiently.

If you have a problem and Photoshop crashes in the middle of an editing session this can leave some pretty large temporary file behind on your scratch disk. Photoshop’s temp files are typically named ~PST####.tmp on Windows, where #### is a series of numbers. These are safe to delete.

Other notes from http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/f/scratchdisk.htm gives these hints:

Clear Disk Space

If you're getting an error message that the scratch disk is full, it usually means you need to clear some space on whatever drive is defined as the scratch disk in Photoshop Preferences, or add additional drives for Photoshop to use as scratch space.

Defragment Your Hard Disk

It is also possible to get the "scratch disk is full" error, even if the scratch disk drive has free space. This is because Photoshop requires contiguous, unfragmented free space on the scratch disk drive. If you are getting the "scratch disk is full" error message and your scratch disk drive does show a good amount of free space, you may need to run a disk defragmentation utility.

Scratch Disk Errors When Cropping

If you are getting a "scratch disk full" error when attempting to crop an image, it's likely that you inadvertently have size and resolution values entered in the options bar for the crop tool, or you entered values in the wrong units. For instance, entering dimensions of 1200 x 1600 when your units are set to inches instead of pixels is going to create a huge file that could trigger the scratch disk full message. The solution is to press clear in the options bar after selecting the crop tool but before dragging a crop selection.

Windows 7 Taskbar Features

ZDNET is a great source for tech news and How To functions that help me learn how to use different features of applications that I use everyday. Ed Bott has been running a short series of Windows 7 functions that when you take them as a whole will give you some good reasons for wanting to move into and start using this new operating system. I know that I have fallen in love with it and I would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to go back to any of the earlier versions of Windows now. Watch the video above to get a feel for what the new taskbar features provide you in this new interface.

Add a popup window to a PowerPoint slide | Microsoft Office | TechRepublic.com

Susan Harkins has an interesting blog entry in TechRepublic that you  might be able to use. Susan shows you how to embed a graphic that triggers a popup window when pressed. If you need this kind of function you will want to read this article you will want to jump to the link listed below and read how she does it.

Add a popup window to a PowerPoint slide | Microsoft Office | TechRepublic.com

Windows 7 in action: A smarter way to manage windows | Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com

Here is a video segment put together by Ed Bott and ZDNet.com. This will give you some easy control techniques for working with window in Windows 7.

Windows 7 in action: A smarter way to manage windows | Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com

Oh Boy! You can now send Pictures using MMS on your iPhone…

This is not to say that I have been hardly waiting for this but is finally here. All you need do is run your iTunes update and sync your iPhone. The updated 3.1 software will install automatically for you. If you don’t initially see the updates in your camera you will need to reboot your camera like I needed to before I could use the updates.

Rebooting: Hold down both your HOME and POWER buttons until the screen blanks.Then hold down the power button until the Apple symbol appears. The restating takes a few minutes so sit back, pour yourself a cup of coffee and wait until your iPhone comes back on. It takes about 2 minutes but it seems like ages.

This update gives you the ability to insert pictures on your iPhone into MMS messages that you send to your peeps. You can do it from three different points in the system.

If you are in messaging you will see a little camera icon in the lower left corner of your iPhone that when pressed will allow you to take a Photo or Video to send, or to choose an existing Photo or Video to send. If you decide to take the Photo or Video on the fly you will be transferred to the Camera application and it works just as it normally does. You are given a choice to retake the process if you don’t like the initial results, and if you pick use it will insert what you have take into the Message for you.

The camera application has added an MMS option to its menu. this allows you to take a photo or video and then attach it to a message to send it out.

The third method of sending out your images is to open your photo application, select your photo or video and then pick the Share option at the  bottom left of screen. Notice how the image is checked and your share and copy buttons show the number of images you will be working with. Press the Share Option and you will be dropped into a choice of sending the images to through Email, MMS or if you have a MobileMe account to the MobileMe file area. Press the MMS Option and you will be taken to the Message Screen.

Which ever method you choose to use to send along you favorite pics & vids to your friends and colleagues, you will find the process simple and fast.   

Advanced Batch Converter - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

If you are worried about jpeg degradation from resaving jpeg images over and over again you may want to convert your images to a lossless format. I took a quick look at www.download.com and here is my result. Try it out and let me know how well it works for you.

Use this highly rated image conversion software to convert batches of images from one format to another. CNET Downloads Review of this product. CNET has rated this with a five star rating and it has over 200K downloads.

Advanced Batch Converter - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

SurveyMonkey.com

If you are a service oriented company, you probably want to know how well you are performing your job from your client’s perspective. It is very important to know how well you are doing and to find out when you are not performing to your client’s expectations. You want to know where you are doing well, and mainly where you are not so that you can fix problems quickly before they start hurting your reputation.

SurveyMonkey.com provides an automated web service that allows you to create a survey questions in many different formats and styles. Then you can either email the link that they create to your survey or you can embed the code in your website that will allow people to fill out a form and submit it back to SurveyMonkey.com. You then have access to the results of the surveys and can determine how well your are doing or not!

You can choose between a free service that limits you to 100 responses per survey and only 10 questions per survey, Monthly Pro Account that costs $19.95 per month and allows you to have a total of 1000 responses per month with an overage charge of $.05/response over 1000 responses, and an Annual Pro account for $200/year with unlimited responses per month and no overage charge. For a more detailed look at the different Account Plans click here…

If you don’t know how you are going to use it, or how many people you are going to have respond to your survey's, you will want to start off with the free account. If you find this product useful you can then jump into the more advanced versions at any time.

Installing Windows 7 Using a USB Flash Drive – Part 1 – Prepping the Flash Drive

I decided to document the process that I need to go through to install Windows 7 onto a new Netbook that I am prepping for my father. I decided to try to do this without using an external USB DVD drive.I needed a 4GB drive which I didn’t have one free so I decided to use one of my SD Flash cards I use with my camera. I have previously reviewed the Mizco SD Reader that I use to read my SD Flash Memory Cards. It turns any SD Flash Memory Card into a USB Flash Drive.

So the first thing that you need to do is to set the memory card as a bootable USB Drive. I am doing this from my Windows 7 Desktop and the procedure is as follows:

Step #1: Format the Drive

The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. [Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive. Be careful.]

1. Plug in your USB Flash Drive
2. Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”
3. Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:
   diskpart
   list disk
   The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step.  I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 2.
4. Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “2” with the number of your disk below.
   select disk 2
   clean
   create partition primary
   select partition
   active
   format fs=NTFS
   assign
   exit
   When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.

Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable 
Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable. I am using an ISO file formatted file for my Win7 install disk and since I have the new version of WINZIP that can access an ISO file directly I am accessing the files in that manner. However, you will probably have a Win7 install CD and I will document accessing in that manner as well. I dropped the contents of my ISO file into a folder on my desktop and that’s how I gained access to the files the same way that you would to your CD.

(Turns out that WinZip was missing files when I performed the above procedure. I eventually burned a DVD and copied the files across as stated below. That worked like a charm. I have had great success running WinZip on ISO files and installing directly from there. That seems to work just fine.)

In the same command window that you were using in Step 1:

1. Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive.
2. Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:
   d:
   cd d:\boot
3. Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer:
   bootsect /nt60 G:
4. You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.

Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive.  After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.

Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option. On most Acer notebooks/Netbooks you will be pressing F2 to jump into the Bios setup when booting your system. Go to the Bios page that controls the boot device order and make your USB device the topmost choice in the boot sequence.

Note: As it turned out, I wasn’t able to complete the install of Windows 7 on this machine this past weekend because the controller couldn’t take being loaded from a USB Flash Drive. Whoops. So we stuck a USB DVD drive on the Netbook and installation went just fine. So much for trying to be inventive to work around not having a portable USB DVD drive.

When upgrading and PC, It pays to do a little prep work to make it a smooth transition…

I have gone through seven system reloads in the past four months and with the last one it was made clear to me that you can never be too prepared for your transition from the old to the new. There are a few things that you need to think about, find and have ready at hand before you start the procedure.

1. Make sure you have your data backed up. The old adage, measure twice cut once is never more true than when you are about to transition to a new operating system. If you hold to the best way to clean up a system is to wipe it clean and start fresh, then whatever you had on the machine will no longer be there when you complete the new operating system installation. There is no going back to get the data so if you forget something, and you don’t have it backed up, well, it is gone in to the wind. It is important to remember how applications work. Recently I lost a year’s worth of notes because I was too cavalier about how well I had things backed up. I had thought I had everything already moved off of a workstation and moved onto the network storage (as it should have been) and it all went up in smoke. I have readjusted the way the application data is handled now, but it is too late for all of that historical data. Take it to heart that even the ones that preach backup can be bit when they are not careful enough. At the office we backup a system to a new drive before we even start a transition. As long as someone doesn’t get in the way and state that they have taken care of the info, if you look at what you are using and where you have it, you can take the steps to protect you precious information.
2. Take inventory of all the applications that you use. This will insure that your system will be up and running with all the tools you use as quickly as possible. Gather all the disks for you applications and their keys so that you can work right down the line to get the machine up and running the way you want. Here is my list of applications that I made when I prepped to install the new Windows 7 RTM on my home systems. The first thing I did was to reload Office when I finished installing the operating system so that I had access to my checklist. If you are well prepped with all your programs and unlock codes you will be able to breeze through the installation and keep your frustration level to a minimum.
3. Make sure you have available the current versions of your programs and that they are compatible with the new operating system. If you are installing into a office situation this is much more critical then in a home environment. Realize that this is the time to trim the fat. My systems tend to get bloated with all of the software installs that I perform on weekly basis to try out new things. Curiosity of the cat and all. This is one of the prime reasons that I reinstall a system as often as I do. It is easier to just start fresh sometimes then to try to make a system come back to peak performance with tweaking. This is suggestion is another attempt at limiting your frustration with the process.
4. Make sure that you have blocked out the time to do your upgrade. You don’t want to be losing your place or forgetting some key programs because you have split your attention between different projects.

Transitioning can be as painless or as painful as you allow it to be, the best way to get through the process is pre-planning the event.

Fancy Bullets!… Add-in for Live Writer

As I was working on setting up my newly reloaded I7 workstation at home I began decided to load up on some of the add-ins

The image below shows you the dialog box that comes up when you click on the Bullets!… menu option. You have three tabs across the top for bullets that are preinstalled, a section for adding new bullets and the last tab points to some links for added support for the program. I jumped to the link listed for more more bullets and the way you add new bullets is to right click on the bullet image you wish to add and choose “Copy Image Location”. This places the URL pointer to the image that you want to add to your bullet list. Next you click on the Add Bullets button shown in the dialog box below.

A new dialog box will pop up. Paste the URL you just captured into the first field. If you want to view what the bullet will look like, press the Preview Button, otherwise, press OK and you will have the new button in you list as above.

To use the add-in, click on the Bullets!… insert choose in you menu on the left hand side of you screen. Highlight the bullet you want to use, and choose the number of space between the bullet and your text, and the number of bullets you want to be displayed. I would suggest creating you list prior to using this add-in and then inserting the text into the appropriate locations. That way you know how many bullets you will need to create. It doesn’t create them on the fly.

Get this program by clicking on the Add a plug-in… menu choice.  or…

Update on Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 1:47PM by Bob Appleby

Thanks Lance. Let me know how it works for you.

Using Jing to capture video and then post to YouTube.

Some simple problems using this program to post Jing Screen/Video Captures. There seems to be a little synchronization issue with the video and sound when taking a picture using the built-in webcam. However, this shouldn’t be a problem when you are just doing screen capture to do a video. I don’t know if this is a function of the processing speed of the Atom processor or that the process itself is flawed. I will have to work on this and see which it is.

I am going to show in the series of videos the process to acquire a screen image and process it up to your site. First thing that you need to do is to configure Jing to point to your YouTube account for it to be able to post the video. You will need to know your account name and password to set this up. Take a look at the video below:

Once your button is setup, you are ready to rock’n roll. This next video shows you how to capture you video an publish it using the button that we have just programmed.

The nine new rules of media - SmartPlanet

An interesting article to ear mark and keep in the back of your mind. As a member of the horde of online bloggers that are out there it is important to keep in mind that the number one thing that will bring people back to your site is quality content that helps them in their world, whether that is a business world or just a personal one. That has always been one of my goals in producing the content that I do on this blog site. We all go through periods when our content is not as interesting as it could be, but if you write about what interests you or compels you to discuss on a topic then some of that excitement can’t help but show up on what your post.

Anyway, I post some items because I just want to come back to them as a reference point in the future as well. And if I want them, well, maybe they might be interesting enough to you as well.

The nine new rules of media - SmartPlanet

Where to host your videos online | Digital Cameras & Camcorders | ZDNet.com

I have looked at all of the selections in the past and I have one more suggestion as well. I like having all my imaging located in one place and I don’t mind too much that it costs me to do so. At $59 per year the pro version of SmugMug gives me the ability to store both static images and videos up to 512MB’s in size. That’s about a typical 10 minute video in standard TV resolution, and  in most cases this is great. If you are looking to put up just short clips this will do the job.

Where to host your videos online | Digital Cameras & Camcorders | ZDNet.com

Technology Podcasts that I Love…

We here the question a great deal about how on earth we keep up on all the new products, techniques and other gadget related things that we do on a daily basis. Most of us hear at Computer Connections fill our free time by listening to podcasts that are free to download to your computer or media player, like and iPod, iPhone or Zune. I like the Zune to listen collect and listen to podcasts because of the ease of setting up subscriptions for downloading to the device and the menuing system on it as well. However, I do like the iPhone interface as well.

AppJudgement – A Revision3 property, I just found this podcast this week and I am thoroughly enjoying the comparisons of the different applications available for our smart phones. If you have just acquired a smart phone or you are a long time owner, I think that you will find these shows very informative and help you decide the best applications for your phone for the way that you use it.

Buzz Out Loud – I have been listening to this podcast for years and find it a great way to keep up on daily news. They are part of CNet and CBS News and provide a very good discussion of current technology news topics that are informative and easy to listen to. They have gone to a new format now that has several of their personalities sharing reporting responsibilities on different days of the week.

Diggnation – These guys are real goofs but they can be a lot of fun. If strong language turns you off then don’t watch, it is not kind on your ears. But if you can get past that, then they do present some interesting technical and non-technical news each week.

The Real Deal – This is another CNet property and is a great source for tech products, gadgets and how to’s on fixing and using your machines.

Security Now – Leo Laporte is considered one of the godfathers of podcasting and he hosts quite a few shows that you might be interested in. This one he hosts with Steve Gibson and discusses security issues that could affect your equipment. A good technology  filled show not real good for beginners.

Tech Stuff – This is a great show that discusses how things work in the technology world. Titles like How MP3 files work, How Cloud Computer Works are examples of the type of topics that are presented.

Tekzilla – Another Revision3 product another technology show that runs the gamut of How To and What is new in the technology world. They have a long list of subjects that they discuss that I am sure you will find something that will interest you. Hosted by Patrick Norton and Veronica Belmont.

This Week in Google (TWIG) – Leo Laporte, Gina Trapani and Jeff Jarvis. Brand new and only on its third episode as I am writing this, this podcast is again hosted by Leo and has two other hosts on that discuss the things going on in the “Internet Cloud”. Likes and dislikes, news and some hints on how to do things on the internet and with internet applications. If you are into computers you are starting to see the trend towards internet hosted applications and this show tries to makes some sense of it all.

This Week In Tech (TWIT) – Another Leo Laporte/TWITTV broadcast that has Leo hosting with different sub hosts each week. The people that he has on the show with him are all of the different reporters and developers from the technology world. Great info and very enjoyable to listen to.

Windows Weekly – Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott get together weekly to talk about Microsoft related products. Whether it software (operating systems, office applications and programming), web based applications and services (Live, MSDN) or hardware (Zune, Xbox) there is a lot going on here that you can find useful if Microsoft touches your world.

These are just a few of the Programs that I use to keep myself informed. Of course there are so many other media sources that we use as well that are too numerous to talk about here. But if ever gave a thought about wanting to find a source for leaning more about your computers and other things, here is a great place to start.

How to tether your iPhone running OS 3.0 without jailbreaking, for free

Quick and easy method for tethering your iPhone as an internet modem to your laptop. Yes it does work.

How to tether your iPhone running OS 3.0 without jailbreaking, for free

Microsoft’s Windows Experience Blog

Located mixed in with the rest of Microsoft’s Windows Blog Sites is their Windows Experience Blog which is jam packed with useful tips and reviews about many different Microsoft products.

Whether you are looking for new product releases, extra help on using an application or product reviews that are not included in the other blogs you will find good information readily available to you. Take a quick look I think you will come away with some useful new tidbit.

Evernote – finally a reason to use it.

I had talked about this program a while back and had likened it to a poor version of OneNote, a program I am sure that if you follow this blog you know I am a big fan of it. Evernote describes its program: “Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.”

There are clients for:

• Mac OS X Leopard
• Windows
• iPhone / iPod Touch
• BlackBerry
• Palm Pre
• Windows Mobile
• Web Clippers
• SanDisk U3

On the desktop you can create notes the contain both text and audio, find printed and handwritten text within images, Clip web content into notes, capture screen shots and synchronize your notes among all of your desktops and mobile devices. The last feature is what really caught my eye. When I saw that I had an iPhone client I finally found the connection that I was looking for to easily share information between my devices. Information anywhere is a big thing for me and this just one more spoke in the wheel to give it to me.

In the free version you have some file limitations that over the next few months I’ll see if it gives me any problems. They have two versions, free and premium. I have captured a screen shot below showing the differences between the two versions. The paid version costs $45/year or $5/ month if you are not sure that you want to commit to it.

How does this translate into real numbers we can associate with. Evernote has again done the math for us and here is a chart showing what these limitations might be with real types of data.

If you are using this to share textual information between devices the free version should be more than adequate. However, if you are capturing a lot of websites, pictures or audio notes than you may want to consider the Premium plan. In my case, I just want to be able to share data between my desktops and mobile easily and this seems like a great method to do so. I am still using OneNote to share the greater portion of info between my desktops, but I needed this one piece to tie in my iPhone and now I think that I have it. We’ll see.

To give you an idea of the text formatting capability on the web interface I have captured a screen shot below for you to look at. It has standard formatting functions including Bold, Italics, Underlining, Super and Subscripting, Left-Center-Right justifying, Strikeout, indent, Line Insertion, Line Numbering and Bullets, creating a hyperlink and clearing a hyperlink assignment, removing formatting and TODO Checkboxes. You can color your text, change fonts and size (these are limited but you have a small amount of flexibility).

When you are creating a note you have the ability to enter tags for the note to later group on, and to assign the note to a folder that you create that is called a notebook. Once you have assigned tags to your notes then you can list your grouped notes quickly by opening the tags group and showing all of the tags that you have entered. Click on the tag group you are interested in and just the tagged subgroup notes will be displayed. You are given several management tools for your tags as well such as creating new tags, renaming a tag, deleting a tag and removing the tag from all your notes that contain the tag.

You have several methods for getting notes into Evernote. You can clip information from a website, enter info from your desktop application, enter info from a web browser, email to a specified email address, or from your Mobile device. You can then sort your notes on the source of the notes, by the type of information the note contains (images, audio, PDF, Ink, Encrypted text, Attachments, To Do lists, unfinished To Do Lists and Finished To Do lists), when the notes were created and when they were last modified. All in all a wide variety of choices to get at your data and quickly focus on what you are looking for. I didn’t mean to leave out the fact that you can also type in a key word that will search all of your notes and quickly display those notes that contain the search word or characters that you entered.

Lastly, if you wish to create a notebook that you want to share data with others you have that capability as well. Drawbacks, not sure on the onset here that I see too many yet but I’ll get back to you on that.

How to Series – OneNote – Updating auto capture locations

Every month I update where my OneNote Captures will automatically default to when capturing a webpage or Outlook email. The following video will show you what I do each month so that I everything works just the way I like it too!

How To Series - OneNote Updating auto capture locations

Wheeeeee! CCI mobile phones are finally caught up to the fun stuff!

With Nick’s help I have gotten my new iPhone 3GS configured pretty close to the way I want it.

First and foremost our concern was with email. I have quite a few accounts and I am still trying to decide if I want all of them to connect to the iPhone or not. It is nice to have access and to manage the accounts from on central interface which is what this is allowing me to do. We encountered two problems, one is caused by the way I have my folders setup in Exchange, the other was with the server settings which is fixed now but required some server tweaking to do so. When we installed the Exchange mail program we lost the camera app on our phones. Turns out this is a security setting that was needed for the government. Once we fixed that the camera app came right back up and worked like a champ. My folder problem I am going to have to work on when I get a chance. Otherwise everything came right over.

The Plantronics Bluetooth ear bud was simple to install and connected without a sweat. It integrates real well with the phone.

The next test I had was with my Garmin 885T GPS unit. It has Bluetooth and that was pretty easy to connect. However, when I clicked on the phonebook icon it just sat their forever. I have a huge contacts database so what was going on was that it had to download to the device. Once it finally grabbed it the interface on the Garmin worked flawlessly with the phone. Great!

The last concern was whether or not I could get my Acer Netbook to tether to the phone and allow me to connect to our servers remotely. This process only took a few minutes and worked wonderfully. I can’t believe how cleanly everything came together. It took most of today to get me there but I have a really strong working setup now to allow a truly mobile office.

Windows 7 arrives: The time is finally ripe

Nearly three years after the debut of the botched Windows Vista, enough is right with Windows 7 to unseat an aging Windows XP

By Randall C. Kennedy | InfoWorld

If you are wondering what reasons you should think about to decide if you should move up in equipment and into the soon to be released Windows 7 operating system, read this article. Infoworld’s Randall Kennedy wrote a great piece describing the history of Windows 7, its XP and Vista beginnings, and how its new interface and functionality can benefit you in your computing experience.

Some key features that I find extremely useful:

• Search Field – The integrated search field in explorer windows and in the Start Menu is fast and extremely useful. Whether you are looking for a document, email, note or a program, just start typing some key words to search on and see what pops up. I use this feature to pull up programs that I don’t use often so don’t have on my taskbar. Once you get used to using it you will never want to go back.
• Explorer Window Breadcrumbs – we have seen this advancement in many programs. This is another one of those things that once you begin using it you don’t want to lose it, and if it is not part of a program you get angry because it is such a useful function. Each of the arrows above points to a point on the bar that I can click on to go back instantly to that folder level. Simple, fast and easy, just what we want. The points build as I am clicking into each folder so it is laying the crumbs for be to be able to follow back from whence I came from.
• Taskbar and Aero Glass – one of the Aero Glass features that has been better utilized is on the Taskbar. As you are sliding across the icons on your Taskbar you will see a representation of the applications that are currently running in each application program. Take a look at the video below to see how this works.

• Pinning – we have seen the concept of pinning items to your Start Menu before but now you are able to do this same thing with Taskbar. Simply right click on an start menu application icon and you have the choice to pin it to your taskbar. Now you have single click access to your favorite programs.This is not limited to just programs, you  can pin documents and other utilities to the Taskbar as well. In XP I made extreme use of the Quick Launch bar, this feature puts this kind of function on steroids.

One of the things that we have seen is the increase in speed when accessing some of our older applications, even over XP. Now we are attributing this to the way Windows 7 as changed the way it accesses database structure from a server but in reality all we know is that it runs like a speed demon. The tests performed by InfoWorld Labs showed greater memory use and slower speeds when compared to XP and slightly overall performance over the current releases of Vista. But in most cases, you will not be putting this program on your older equipment but moving it onto new equipment as you are refreshing. Microsoft in all their meetings with us has stated that you really want to run this program in 64-bit mode and take advantage of how inexpensive memory has become. So if you are configuring a system, don’t skimp on RAM.

Hardware compatibility – having been built from the Vista kernel, Windows 7 doesn’t have the lack of hardware drivers that gave Vista such a black eye when it first came out. Two years after Vista’s initial release hardware vendors have caught up with drives that support both Vista and Windows 7 quite adequately. In one of my previous articles I mentioned how when installing Windows 7 on my Netbook I didn’t have to go out and search for a single driver to get all of the hardware components functioning. It was great. So this is now pretty much a non-issue.

Third Party Application Compatibility – Microsoft has finally recognized that Windows XP is still the Gold Standard for application compatibility and stability. While we saw many programs failing in the Vista environment, Windows 7’s application support has been much improved. Windows 7 key is VXP or Virtual Windows XP Mode which provides a virtualized WXP image for running applications in their native environment. So if an application doesn’t work right in XP compatibility mode then you can virtualize it. “Still, VXP is compelling in that it provides a fully licensed copy of Windows XP that you can run alongside your Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate license. And it's free.”

Going back to hardware. With the new norm in systems being multi-core (dual and quad for now and more coming down the road) and much larger standard memory configurations, you will want in employ an operating system that uses the these and many more hardware configurations. Windows 7 takes advantage of multi-core systems better than XP with its base architecture. You will be better leveraged for the future applications taking full advantage of these capabilities.

We all loved XP but once you begin to work with Windows 7 I think you will be won over.