Microsoft Anytime Upgrade is a new system implemented by microsoft in order to  allow customers seeking more features to easily upgrade to another version of windows vista.

Previously, Microsoft didn’t have such methods in place to influence users to go out and buy a legal copy of their operating system. With this new system a person who has purchased a copy of Microsoft’s newest operating system which is  Windows Vista can easily upgrade a more feature filled version like the premium edition.

The key advantage being the cost of upgrade. A user who has purchased the most basic edition of windows vista can upgrade to Home premium with only a fraction of the cost. Full price for a legal copy of Home premium is about $159 but with this new system in place, you can get a activation key to upgrade for only $79.

Another system in place to promote legal usage of Windows Vista is Windows Family Discount. This allows a costumer who has purchased a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate to get licenses for Home premium at a very low price. Basically the costumer would be allowed licenses to Home premium that can be installed on up to two PCs for only $49 rather than having to pay the full price $159 for each one of your systems.

Microsoft’s decision to introduce these discounts will definitely appeal to more costumers looking to buy a legal copy instead of a pirated one. If a user was forced to buy new licenses at the full price for each system at their given house, the use of pirated copies would become much more appealing.

They should have come with such ideas in the past as it would have decreased the amount of pirated copies floating around the internet. Note that I chose to use my words carefully by stating decrease but not end piracy. There will always be people who choose to use pirated copies rather than a legitimate one.

Speaking at the worlds largest technology conference, Bill Gates proudly announced his plans to step down from his throne as the Head of Microsoft. He also confirmed that next year would see his last speech at CES as he steps down as head of the company he started 30 years ago.

Microsoft has played an important role in our lives with their introduction of Windows at an age when graphics could not even compare to today’s calculater. The brains behind the works, Bill Gates has been the face that is seen throughtout the world of computing. Bill will still participate in company affairs but as the non-executive Chairman of the company he founded in 1975.

In addition to being one of the most influential tech entrepreneurs, he’s widely regarded as a humanitarian. His contributions in third world countries has certainly won him praise among his fans and the general public. Well, who could stay away from charities when your bank account is worth more than 50 billion dollars. After Stepping down,he hopes to focus on his interests such as fighting poverty,helping the diseased and the foundation he and his wife started.

There is no question to be asked when it comes to his credibility and skill at thinking ahead of his competitors. Perhaps thats the reason for his success leading him to become the worlds richest man. Hopefully,Bill will remain involved in his company’s affairs and watch his creations flourish.

[Via: BBC]

Wether you are a average pc user or a power user,rememering those long lists of shortcuts built into your windows operating system can be a hassle.However, these shortcuts can be very handy when it comes to saving you some extra time.

I had some time to spare and thought I should help my fellow readers out with some quick shortcuts that you might of forgotten or simply unaware of.Hopefully these shortcuts will come in handy when you upgrade to windows vista.This way you are bound to save alot of time with these shortcuts.

»Windows system key combinations

»Windows program key combinations

»Mouse click/keyboard modifier combinations for shell objects

»General keyboard-only commands

Windows Vista is set to launch by january 2007.There has been alot of hype about the new features and improvements made by microsoft .The dreaded five years wait has produced a worthy system in the eyes of many but not revolutionary enough for some.

PC World has accquired a copy of the windows vista operating system and has included some insights into the added features compared to its predecessors.These screenshots simply highlight the many features to look forward to in windows vista.

From the first look,Vista seems to be a real eye candy much like the MAC operating system.Many even argue that microsoft has simply copied several of the features found in the mac interface.One of the key features in the new editon is the extended support for gadgets like clocks,stock tickers,RSS Feeds and much more.

[More Info at PCWORLD]

Torrents Guide for Dummies is a guide to help beginners to the whole bittorent protocol get started.So you have been hearing everyone talking about “how they download tv shows they have missed using torrents” but you never really got the hang of it.I will give you some insights into what Bittorents can do and what it really is.I will try my best to keep it simple.

Bittorrent is a P2P(peer to peer) file sharing protocol orginally designed and created by Bram Cohen.Currently Bittorent protocal is maintained by BitTorrent inc.It was designed as means to cut down on costly server and bandwidth resources.

Cachelogic,a internet traffic company claims 35% of all traffic on the web is from torrents.CableLabs, the research organization of the North American cable industry, believes that BitTorrent represents 55% of the upstream traffic on the cable companies’ access network.

»How does it work?

Basically bittorent protocol functions by a tracker coordinating transfer of bits and pieces of data to you from other clients who have finished downloading or are currently downloading the same file.Traditional filesharing protocols were designed to connect you directly to a single source.

In practice,bittorent model is much faster because of its ability to tap into a wide variety of sources for download.A key point to note is that Bittorrent protocol is designed to reward those who share files upward with higher download speeds.Those who are not willing to upload are punished with slow download speeds.

»What do I need to start downloading with Torrents?

There are a few things you need to start downloading with torrents:

Here I will provide the most popular bittorent tools out there.

1.Bittorrent Client such as:

Utorrent-One of the best Bittorent clients available for download at the moment.It combines both fuctionality and performance into a small package.It only requires 1MB of harddrive space and memory,which is why its no suprise most expert downloaders refer to uttorent as “micro torrent”.

Although utorrent only requires a small amount of system resources,it offers full fuctionality to both seeders and downloaders.This is one piece of software I would recommend most to anyone begining to use bittorrents.

Azureus-Once regarded as one of the best bittorent clients has only now been replaced by utorrent.Azureus still enjoys a strong fan base that is constantly working on improving it’s capabilities.In terms of functionality,Azureus is still one of the most recommended programs by the torrent community.

ABC-This client is capable of some advanced features and it’s very popular among the community.

Bitcomet-Yet another popular bittorrent client with some fancy capabilities.This is definitely a good client but not in the standards of Utorrent or Azureus.

BitTorrent client-Authored by Bram Cohen the creator of bittorrent protocol itself.It’s very useful client that is very fast but not very friendly to beginners.

2.You will need a Torrent search engine to find files that you are looking for:

Isohunt-A torrent site that has incredible amount of files in its database.

Torrentspy-Torrent search engine with a very friendly design and great amount of users.

The Pirate Bay-It’s a swedish torrent website that has faced many legal issues but still remains.This is definitely one of the most popular torrent sites available.Their database is massive compared to its competitors.

Torrentreactor-This is a site well known to many torrent users.

3.If you are using a internet connection with a router/firewall then you will need to open some ports:

In order to achieve this you can use this site.The author gives us a comprehensive guide into hows it done.If you are using a software firewall,then make exceptions for your bittorrent client of choice.You can also make exceptions for ports ranging from 6881-6889 in your firewall to accomplish this task.

»Torrent Terms You Should Know:

“Swarming” is about splitting large files into hundreds of smaller “bits”, and then sharing those bits across a “swarm” of dozens of linked users.

“Swarm” swarm is when all peers are sharing a torrent 

“Tracking” is when specific servers help swarm users find each other. Download speeds are controlled by these tracking servers.

“Availability” The number of full copies of the file available to the client.

“Choked” Describes a peer to whom the client refuses to send file pieces

“Interested” Describes a downloader who wishes to obtain pieces of a file the client has

“Leech” A leech is usually a peer who has a negative effect on the swarm by having a very poor share ratio - in other words, downloading much more than they upload

“Peer” A peer is one instance of a BitTorrent client running on a computer on the Internet to which other clients connect and transfer data

“Tracker” A tracker is a server thats keeps track of which seeds and peers are part of the swarm.

»If you need a step by step guide to download,then use this link.

Most of your time online is spent on reading and comprehending text found all throughout the internet. Traditional font appearance in browsers were not always crisp and clear,which is now being improved dramatically using ClearType.The ever growing popularity of Laptops have been the driving force behind microsoft’s interest toward developments in text for LCD screens.

Microsoft has been conducting research on improving the average IE user’s reading experience for over several years now.Infact microsoft has a Readability Research Group which is responsible for the ongoing development of ClearType.Microsoft has found clear evidence of significant improvements including a 17% increase in word recognition accuracy,5% increase in reading and a 2% improvement in reading comprehension to support their move to enable this feature.

ClearType technology was present in windows XP but failed to enforce it by default.During the beta versions of IE7,this feature was enabled by default which caused some users with older screen displays to be irritated to say the least. With the official release of Internet Explorer 7,a option is present during installation to keep ClearType on.Personally I have found ClearType to be much more crisp and clear compared to when it was not enabled. Also It is suprising Firefox is not enforcing the use of text enhancements such as ClearType even with their new release.

What is ClearType?
ClearType is a software technology developed by Microsoft that improves the readability of text. With ClearType font technology, text on your computer screen has a visual quality much like if it were printed on paper.

How does it work?
ClearType works by accessing the individual vertical color stripe elements in every pixel of an LCD screen. Prior to the development of ClearType, the smallest level of detail that a computer could display was a single pixel, but with ClearType running on an LCD monitor, it is possible to display features of text as small as a fraction of a pixel in width. The extra resolution increases the sharpness of the tiny details in text display, making it much easier to read over long durations.

How do I turn on Turn on/Turn off ClearType?

»While running Internet Explorer 7,click on tools to the top menu

»Click on the Options button to open the internet options window

»while having Internet options window open,Click on the Advanced tab

»Simply scroll down to Multimedia section

    
• Check the first option stating Always use ClearType for HTML*
  to turn it on
• Uncheck the first option stating Always use ClearType for HTML*
  to turn ClearType off

[More info at IEblog]