Paul Smith's Blog

Carrying on from my preview post about how Internet Explorer and Pen Flicks are somewhat broken, next we come to the even more annoying issue. RSS feeds don't reliably update in Windows 7. I haven't worked out exactly what is going on with this one yet. But since I've been running Windows 7 I've noticed after logging onto the machine in the morning, that the RSS feeds in Internet Explorer - well any that are stored in the Common Feed List - aren't automatically updating....

The BBC was trying to do an article covering the Perseid meteor shower. Well they did a largely fair job on it, well almost. No special equipment is required to watch the shower, which occurs when Earth passes through a stream of dusty debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. Yeah that's fine. The meteors appear to come from a point called a "radiant" in the constellation of Perseus - hence the name Perseid....

Now that Windows 7 has RTMed, it's time to look at where we are exactly from a bug standpoint. Last week we had a lot of fuss over the so-called check disk bug, where check disk would use up all but 50MB of RAM. When was the last time anyone here ran check disk? And as I've always said, unused RAM is wasted RAM. I'm sat on my machine at the moment and it’s got 2GB unused, come on use that RAM....

CNet had a look at the Zune HD last Thursday. The mood seems generally positive. Donald Bell: The Zune's coolest music trick, though, is that it automatically pulls in a gallery of band photos, biographical information, and similar artist recommendations for any currently playing song--regardless of whether the track is from Zune Marketplace, your friend's hard drive, or torrents. It's feels a little more like digging through Last.fm now, instead of just a straight-up music directory....

Astronomers have a fairly good rule of thumb for identifying planets and stars. We say planets appear as a disc, while stars always appear as a point of light. While being good generally, there are a few exceptions, obviously we can see the Sun has a disc as its so close to us compared to other stars. And assuming you have a large telescope, something like the Very Large Telescope in Chile, you can resolve about a dozen other stars as discs, R Doradus is one of the larger ones and so is Betelgeuse, the bright star in Orion's shoulder....

One of the major changes in Windows 7, is the new Taskbar. By default it looks something a little like this: Now if you're like me, and would rather it make better use of onscreen real estate you can stop the icons from combining (although to be fair I do use the default setting on my Tablet PC and my netbook), and turn on text labels again, that'll make it look more like this:...

In light of developments last week, regarding Windows 7 using a browser ballot screen to select a browser, Microsoft have now announced they're planning to scrap the E versions of Windows 7. We have now decided to alter that launch plan. In the wake of last week’s developments, as well as continuing feedback on Windows 7 E that we have received from computer manufacturers and other business partners, I’m pleased to report that we will ship the same version of Windows 7 in Europe in October that we will ship in the rest of the world....

Full details over on the Windows blog. Here's the quick rundown: Starter (typically only found on low-cost netbooks) to Home Premium: $79.99. Home Premium to Professional: $89.99. Home Premium to Ultimate: $139.99 Unlike Windows Vista, using Anytime Upgrade only takes about 10 minutes, and doesn't require a full system upgrade like with Windows Vista which could take anywhere up to a couple of hours. The Family Pack, which includes 3 licenses for Home Premium is $149....

A few people have asked me what the hashes are for the final bits of Windows 7. These are confirmed: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit: Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRMCULXFRER_EN_DVD.iso Other name: en_windows_7_ultimate_x64_dvd_X15-65922.iso SHA-1: 326327CC2FF9F05379F5058C41BE6BC5E004BAA7 CRC: 0x1F1257CA Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit: Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRMCULFRER_EN_DVD.iso Other name: en_windows_7_ultimate_x86_dvd_X15-65921.iso SHA-1: 5395DC4B38F7BDB1E005FF414DEEDFDB16DBF610 CRC: 0xC1C20F76 Windows 7 Professional 64-bit: Name: en_windows_7_professional_x64_dvd_x15-65805.iso SHA-1: 50127304441A793EE51B3F501289F6599A559E9F CRC: 502C42C1 Windows 7 Professional 32-bit: Name: en_windows_7_professional_x86_dvd_x15-65804.iso SHA-1: 697FA06554502FB21D30275273B25747299C020D CRC: 578725D1 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit:...

The new swish Office 2010 splash screen has got a fair bit of attention. They are quite nice looking. Here's the one from Outlook 2010: