Computers & Technology

Updates to a computer’s operating system should have more specific technical detail than this:

It’s fine to bury the gory technical details in a knowledgebase document available on the web, but a basic description should be provided to the user, however cryptic.

If you use Google Docs’ new interface, you now have one more gears icon, to control the appearance. And, if you visit Google Docs with the Internet Explorer version 8 or 9, you could see something like this:

Microsoft made available for download software that controls the keyboard and mouse for more than one Microsoft Windows computer with one keyboard and one mouse. In essence a software version of a KVM device. This seems to be essentially the same as the open-source project Synergy 2 (see http://synergy-foss.org/), except that it only works in Microsoft Windows. You can read about it (and download it?) from Microsoft’s TechNet blog at http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2011/09/09/microsoft-garage-download-mouse-without-borders.aspx.

This blog post deserves a re-publishing. You can view the original posting from 2009.

If you have Microsoft Word 2010, you can publish any Word document to your NYU Blog. Note that before publishing to your blog, you must have activated your NYU Blog. Read about how to activate your NYU Blog.  Below are step-by-step insctructions on how to configure Microsoft Word 2010 to publish to your NYU Blog:

1. Open Word 2010 and write your document, or open an existing document in Word 2010.
2. Click the File menu> Save & Send> Publish as Blog Post.
3. Click the button “Publish as Blog Post” and register a new blog (or click "Manage Accounts").
4. Select Blog Provider "Other" and click Next.

5. Select API "MetaWeblog" and fill in the following fields:

   1. Blog Post URL: http://blogs.nyu.edu/movabletype/mt-xmlrpc.cgi
   2. Username: YourNYUNetID
   3. Password: YourWebPublishingPassword (not your NYUHome password!!)
6. Click OK and "Yes" when prompted.
7. Choose a blog and click OK.
8. If successful, you should see a dialog box that reads, "Account registration successful." Dismiss that dialog and start blogging!
9. Publish when ready.

Microsoft offers a free download of Windows Virtual PC XP Mode for people who use Windows 7. XP Mode runs a virtual machine with the operating system Windows XP. To install XP Mode, follow these steps:

1. Visit http://www.microsoft.com/ and search for and download "Windows XP Mode".



 

2. Verify that your Windows 7 operating system is genuine, by following the steps outlined.
3. Install Virtual PC XP Mode on your computer.
4. Once installed, configure the options by following the prompts.



5. Launch XP Mode. Click Start-> All Programs-> Windows Virtual PC-> Windows XP Mode.
6. Launch Windows Update and upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 in Windows XP Mode.
7. Download and install an anti-virus program in Windows XP Mode.
8. Enable the Windows Firewall.
9. Restart Windows XP Mode in the Virtual PC.
10. You are now ready to use Windows XP Mode.

If you install Windows XP Mode in order to run Brio reports, you still have to download and install the Brio plugin for Internet Explorer. Visit http://www.nyu.edu/its/askits and search for "install brio plugin" for instructions.

The latest version of Windows, Windows 7, comes with Internet Explorer 8 pre-installed. The latest version of Internet Explorer, available for download from Microsoft’s web site, is version 9.

If you need to use Internet Explorer 6, but your computer has the Windows 7 operating system, you could use a virtual environment to run it. One option is to download, install and run Windows XP Mode, a special installation of Microsoft Virtual PC. This software is available gratis from Microsoft. It actually installs a virtual machine with the Windows XP operating system.

That is not the only way to run IE6 in a virtual environment. Symantec offers two products, Symantec Windows Virtualization and Symantec Endpoint Virtualization. Both of these cost money and are available from Symantec resellers. More details are available at http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/virtualized-internet-explorer-6-windows-7.

Another company that makes virtual environments available for running IE is VMWare. VMWare packages what it calls ThinApps, a virtual environment with one application (IE6 for instance) packaged into one executable. More information is available at http://blogs.vmware.com/thinapp/2010/06/internet-explorer-6on-windows-7.html and http://www.vmware.com/products/thinapp/overview.html. This software solution also costs money; as with Symantec, a free trial is available for a limited period.

Internet Explorer 9 is a great browser. Overall it is very responsive, very well laid out, and very well designed modern browser. However, the world has not yet caught up with it (in some sense is it too advanced?), and some older plugins and some websites don’t yet work well in IE9.

To uninstall Internet Explorer 9, click on Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel (or run appwiz.cpl) and View Installed Updates. In the Microsoft Windows section, you will see listed “Windows Internet Explorer 9”.

See full details at Microsoft’s website at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/how-do-i-install-or-uninstall-internet-explorer-9

NYU E-mail has a visual way of telling you whether an e-mail in your inbox was sent to you or to a mailing list. This is called ‘personal level indicator’ (see the help page).

If a message was sent to your e-mail address only, the message will be marked with a “>>” (two greater-than symbols) next to the subject. If your e-mail address is one among a few recipients, the message will be marked with a “>” (one greater-than symbol).  If the message does not have a “>” or “>>” mark, then the message was sent to a mailing list of which you are a recipient.

When will Microsoft release Internet Explorer 9? For the longest time, it was in beta (or test mode). Recently it went from beta to Release Candidate. Now when will they actually release software that they are confident about?

I hate this idea of beta. Google had a service as essential as email in beta for years! If you want to distribute test software for people to help you test your software, fine. Certainly there is need to have several rounds of beta and release candidates- for developers and other IT people. But not for the general public. Get your act together.

If you don't have confidence that your product can be used by everyone and it still needs testing, distribute it to your developers and invite others to _test it. Otherwise, stop adversiting the software for the general public until it is ready.

From the article:

NYU’s new cogeneration plant will save money, reduce carbon emissions and improve the reliability our electrical grid.

Cool.