Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen

Herding Cats: Organize your Desktop Icons with Stardock Fences for Windows

Scott Hanselman — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:32:15 GMT

There are few issues that divide computer people like that thousand-year-old question: How many icons should you have on your desktop? Some folks say, "Load 'em up! Make those pixels work for you." Others say, "I like a fresh ~~bowl~~ desktop with no icons." Some folks find a spot in between with just My Computer and the Recycle Bin.

For me, the desktop is my work space. It's where I live and breathe and it's in front of my face all the time. I want as much information on there as possible. If I wanted a picture of the beach, I'd live at the beach and look up from my keyboard.

I'm thrilled with Windows 7. Frankly, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the free time that I'm saving not dicking around with my computer trying to get it to work. Many of the tools I've espoused over the years simply aren't needed in Windows 7 as they were filling gaps that are no longer there.

That said, Fences from Stardock is one of those apps that extends Windows in such a comfortable and natural way, it should be built in. What's wonderful about Fences is that it is so subtle but so powerful that it truly becomes part of Explorer and feels like it's always there. It's not like to many loud or garish utilities that take over some aspect of Windows and feel the need to announce their presence with bright colors obnoxious splashscreens.

Kudos, truly, to Stardock for showing not only a sense of restraint but also for embracing what I think of as the "new Windows aesthetic." Years of ridiculous toolbars, poor icon design, the Crayola-color themes of Windows XP and general gaudiness has watered down Windows and made it almost impossible to consider it an "visually attractive" OS. I think it's great that Windows 7 has a definable style that developers are embracing. I'm thrilled each time I download and play with some throwaway little utility but the developer has taken the time to integrate a Windows 7 feature like JumpLists, Taskbar Progress or even just taken the time to create a decent high-res icon. This is definitely a cue we can take from the Apple folks.

Fences Augments Windows Explorer

Back to Fences. It allows you to create just that - little "Fences" around icons on your desktop. The Fences can be any color and can have labels or not, or just show labels on mouseover.

To create a Fence you just right-drag a rectangle and click "create new fence here." Alternatively you can select from a series of presets to jump start your organization. You can also take snapshots when you get things just so. I do this for presentations because switching from 1920x1200 to 1024x768 tends to wreck havoc on icons and fences. Snapshots put things back they way they were.

Once you drag an icon into a fence, it auto-arranges with a satisfying animation as all the icons rearrange themselves to make room for the new addition.Another great subtle feature is if you double-click on the desktop it'll hide your icons. This is not only great for presentations where you might not want to let the eating public see the chaos in the kitchen, but it's also a nice compromise for those of you who want a clean desktop, but can also appreciate a a few icons here and there. You can even exclude specific icons (like perhaps My Computer) from quick-hide.

One obscure bug that I hope the Fences guys and gals fix is that there are some applications that take a regular folder, like Live Mesh for example, and "augment" it to make it more than a regular folder. They might change the icons or plug in a sidebar window. For whatever reason, Fences can't see those Folders while they are different. For now, the workaround is to exit Mesh, move the folder into the Fence, then turn Mesh on. Truly a minor irritant and best, but still it'd be nice to see it fixed.

Regardless, I whole-heartedly recommend Fences and encourage you to go download it NOW and try it out. Note that when you install it, you should pay attention to what it installs, as it also added an "auto-updater" for Stardock products that you may want to remove afterwards if those kinds of extra-applets bother you.

Enjoy!

Oredev 2009 - LIVE (now recorded) Closing Panel Video

Scott Hanselman — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:46:44 GMT

I was at Øredev 2009 in Malmö, Sweden this week. Øredev is fast becoming one of the premier conferences in Europe focused on the software development process. It's a consciously technology agnostic conference so there was not only a .NET tracks and a Java track, but also tracks like Agile Ways, User Experience and Cloud Computing.

I believe there were something like 100 speakers so it was an incredibly diverse conference. I hung out with some friends from Sun, an iPhone hacker from AT&T, ASP.NET Debugger Tess Ferrandez, Trygve Reenskaug the inventor of the MVC Model, as well as old friends like Carl and Richard and new ones like James Bach.

Oredev was interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that they didn't use regular plates and utensils, but rather organic ones made from collected banana leaves.

I presented at the keynote on Friday. My topic was "Information Overload and Managing the Flow" and I talked about the differences between Effectiveness and Efficiency and how apply some personal introspective and get more work done. That video will be up soon and I'll post it along with my slides ASAP. I also presented on ASP.NET MVC 2.

Recorded Panel of Silly People

One of the random but fun things we did was the final panel of the conference. These are always silly things, presented just before the beer and chips arrive, and they are a nice way for everyone to blow off steam. Basically some of the ~~biggest egos~~ speakers participate in a panel where questions come from the audience and from Twitter.

The Panel was moderated by Björn Granvik, and the folks on the stage were:

James Bach - Author of Lessons Learned in Software Testing
Ola Bini - Thoughtworker, core developer of JRuby and creator of Ioke
Stu Halloway - Author of Programming Clojure
Me - Me
Oren Eini (Ayende Rahien) - NHibernate Profiler, NHibernate, Castle, Rhino Mocks
Chris Hughes - AT&T iPhone Hacker

Here's the video:

I had the idea to stream this panel live (I've done this a few times - fairly guerilla - at other conferences) over UStream.tv. I figured I'd just point my laptop webcam and crappy integrated mic at the stage and while it'd be lame, it'd be something fun to do as I know there's a bunch of people who'd like to participate.

Turns out the sound and video guys at this conference really know their stuff. We were able to jerry-rig a fairly nice little setup. They took the XLR cables and the complete mix from their mixing board and not only switched it down to a 1/8 male mic jack, but they also change it from line-output to mic-output to deal with my laptops lack of a line input.

Then, a guy said, hey, I've got a Professional Canon DV Video Camera with Firewire. It turns out I had a Firewire port on my laptop and I just plugged his camera in on a lark. Boom, Windows 7 found the drivers online and the Firewire Camera showed up as a webcam.

Using the uStream software, we mixed in video and audio and recorded this 60minute panel discussion.

To be clear, there is likely no actual "content" here. We were asked to "edutain" more than educate as it was the final fun of the conference. We were all pretty good friends by this point so we were flicking the mud fairly liberally.

One warning if you listen to this without headphones, there are about three swear words on the recording.

I hope the fun we had comes out in this spontaneous recording. Also, thanks to the roughly 200 people who heard about this LIVE stream on Twitter and joined the chat and drove the discussion.

If you like this kind of thing, let me know and I'll continue to put together these kinds of web-events. Enjoy!

Hanselminutes on 9 - Debugging Crash Dumps with Tess Ferrandez and VS2010

Scott Hanselman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:11:41 GMT

I'm in Sweden this week at Øredev and I got a chance to talk to legendary ASP.NET Debugger and Escalation Engineer Tess Ferrandez.

In this video Tess shows me how to debug a dump of an ASP.NET Web Site with a pile of awesome and totally new features in Visual Studio 2010. You can open up dump files in Visual Studio directly and see visual representations of parallel call stacks. If you spend any time in WinDBG you're going to be excited by these new improvements in the debugging experience.

I also talked to Tess for an extended Debugging 101 session on the full 30 minute audio edition of my Hanselminutes Podcast out later this week.

Enjoy!

Offline installer for Windows Live Essentials - WLSetup-All.exe

Scott Hanselman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:52:46 GMT

My brother and his wife came over today and the kids went trick or treating. His wife mentioned she wanted to make a quick DVD of the pictures and movies we took, so I suggested Movie Maker. However, they only have dial-up and wanted an offline installer I could just put on a USB Stick (I actually figured I'd put it on their camera's SD Card.)

I went to http://download.live.com and searched all over, looking for an offline installer. I Googled with Bing, and then Googled with Google for things like "Windows Live Offline Installer" and found nothing but confusion.

Then I figured out this bizarre bit of UI on the Live Essentials download page. Rather than offering a small link for "offline installer" or a choice, you have to click Download which will attempt to start a Download of Windows Live Essentials online bootstrapper. It will then go and download just the programs you want.

However, if you cancel the download immediately, there's a "Try Again" button and some text that no one (including me) reads:

"Trying again downloads a standalone installer to your computer. This takes a little while, but may work better, depending on your connection settings."

Um, OK. I wouldn't label that Try Again, but OK.

Long story short, here's direct downloads for the Windows Live Essentials English Language ONLINE and OFFLINE installers. They are current as of the writing of this blog post. I'm not sure if they are version-specific downloads but I will try to keep them up to date.

Windows Live Essentials OFFLINE English Installer - 134 megabytes total.
Windows Live Essentials ONLINE English Installer - 1 megabyte bootstrapper

Or, if you want an offline installer in other languages, go to http://download.live.com, click Download, cancel it, then click Try Again. I think it's weird, but there you go.

Enjoy.

Using a Bluetooth Jawbone Headset for BT-Audio (Microphone or Speakers) on Windows 7

Scott Hanselman — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:17:05 GMT

I installed a PILE of new drivers tonight from Lenovo using their most awesome System Update 4.0. Included was a Bluetooth Stack update.

On a whim, I tried to pair my Jawbone Bluetooth Headset, something that has never worked before, and it worked!

More interestingly, when I right click on the Jawbone and click "Control" I get this dialog I've never seen before!

This actually looks and feels a tiny bit unpolished. Note the tight vertical whitespace at the VERY top and the strange blue gradient, as well as the Vista-esque color scheme on the far left. Not sure if this was in Vista and just not updated for Windows 7, but it looks weird.

UPDATE: Confirmed - This crazy wrong looking dialog is owned by Lenovo, not Windows.

Still, then Skype popped up suddenly and said there was new audio devices available!

Sure enough, I've got a new Microphone and new "Speakers" in the form of my Jawbone headset. I can even use this headset for Voice Recognition, or even as my Default Communications device for Phone Calls with Office Communicator. Or, I can listen to music through my Jawbone. Deeply cool.

I'm not sure who to thank, Windows 7 for better audio and Bluetooth support, or Lenovo for a Bluetooth 2.1 driver. Either way, I'm thrilled that my laptop can suddenly do something with Windows 7 that it couldn't do yesterday!

Windows 7 with BitLocker and Still Booting To VHD

Scott Hanselman — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:34:58 GMT

As a remote worker at Microsoft I have to deal with a few little things that the average worker in Redmond doesn't.

For example, none of my machines are wired to "CorpNet." They're all remote so for the last two years I've had to RAS (Remote Access Service) into the corporate network. For a while you could use your password, but then you needed to use your Smart Card (or your immortal soul, as I call it) and a complex pin. So you've got multi-factor authentication, you need your actual network password (and of could your domain\username), your physical smart card and your smart card's pin. That's a lot. Someone evil could have two of those three things and you'd still be OK.

Since two of my three machines are laptops, there's always risk that I could lose it or have it stolen. If I kept secret stuff on my laptop (I don't) that could be a problem. Laptops run Windows 7 now and are required to be BitLocker'ed (FAQ). This means the whole hard drive is encrypted, there's an (optional) PIN to even turn it on, and it can take advantage of newer machines that have a TPM (Trusted Platform Module). Basically a TPM is a hardware cryptoprocessor that can store keys for securing information. BitLocker uses this chip to project the keys and makes sure the BIOs and boot sector haven't been tampered with. Fortunately it's all automatic so I don't have to think about it.

This is what I see when I'm booted off my Bitlocker'ed C: drive. That D: drive is my other spindle.

I recently Bitlocker'ed both my laptops, but I Boot to VHD for many demos and it's not possible to boot off a VHD that lives on a Bitlocker'ed volume. That's the one bad thing about Bitlocker from my point of view. I'm sure it's a chicken and the egg problem. How do you boot off a file on an encrypted volume without booting off the encrypted volume?

Turns out though that you can still Boot to VHD in a few other ways. You can partition your drive with a Bitlocker'ed C: and an unencrypted D:, or you can get a second spindle. That means, you can get another hard drive and put it in the slot when your DVD/CD usually goes. That's what I decided to do.

I bitlockered my 256 gig OCZ Vertex SSD, and I have a D: drive that is my 160 gig random no-name SATA drive. On that drive I only put demo VHDs.

I had to go into the BIOS of my Lenovo W500 and add the drive to the "boot order" in order to make it spin up on boot and be available to Windows. Then, since I can't really be sure of it's drive letter that early, I changed the syntax of my BCDEdit settings a bit. Figured I'd let Windows figure it out, so instead of [D:] I used [LOCATE]. Like this:

C:\>bcdedit /copy {current} /d "My New VHD Option"
C:\>bcdedit /set {guid} device vhd=[LOCATE]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
C:\>bcdedit /set {guid} osdevice vhd=[LOCATE]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
C:\>bcdedit /set {guid} detecthal on

Now, when I'm booted into my VHD, I see this:

What are we seeing?

My D: drive is my original boot SSD. It's marked with a lock icon. I can't access it right now.
My C: drive is the whatever.vhd that I booted off of. I made it 40gigs, so it is. (The actual file is 15gigs, but it "blows up" while I'm running on it. It'll shrink back down when I'm not booted off it.
My E: drive is some system partition I don't know about.
My F: is the Second Spindle that all my VHDs live on.

But, how can I get access to my secure C: drive when I'm booted into this insecure world? Of course, we don't want the bad guys to get in there, which makes sense.

If I double click, I see this:

These options are all settable with Group Policy I think, but my choices are to add a really complex Password to get access to this drive or use my Smart Card. I can also use the recovery key that I saved in a secure location when I originally locked the drive.

I unlock it, and I see this:

Now, just for the duration of this single boot, this disk is available to me. Very cool.

I was a little afraid when I Bitlocker'ed my machine just before a trip, but I'm feeling pretty good about it so far. I haven't noticed any perceptible slowdown but the FAQ says "single digit." I've heard numbers like 3%, but I haven't noticed it in the sense that my machine isn't suddenly "sluggish."

I'm VERY suspicious when corporate IT wants to reach out from Redmond and do something to my computer but this turned out great.

Here's the email I sent internally to my team today about Bitlocker:

As you know, MSIT is starting to put BitLocker on mobile machines. I recommend you upgrade any Vista machine to Windows 7 before running Bitlocker. As always, backup your data first.

I figured I should be the guinea pig for you guys, so I Bitlockered BOTH my Lenovo T60p and Lenovo W500 yesterday. These are my two corporate machines.

1a. On my W500 I was automatically prompted to reboot and enable the TPM (trusted platform module) in my BIOs. This enable step was automatic and only required me to press F10 once.

1b. On my T60p, I was told to enter the BIOs manually and enable it. There is no “TPM” section in the T60p. Instead, you go into Security, the Security Chip and turn on all the options under Security Reporting. Save your BIOS settings and reboot.

2. When prompted for a “PIN” I declined. This >=5 digit number would be a system-level password for when you start-up your machine. It's recommended, but ultimately up to you.

3. The process ran OVERNIGHT. It took at least 5 hours on each machine from what I can tell.

4. Next, go to the Start Menu and type “manage bitlocker.” You’ll want to save and print your recovery key. The Importance of this step cannot be overstated. Save this key and treat it like it is your immortal soul.

c. If Bitlocker smells any funny business you’ll get prompted for these keys. Murphy’s Law says this will happen 10 minutes before a major conference speech. No excuses for not having these. Without them, your computer is a brick. (That's kind of the wonderful point of BitLocker. ;) )

That scary part said, it works exactly as it should. It was easy and painless.

So far, we are not forced to lockup second drives/spindles. This means that you can STILL boot to VHD off of a second drive if that drive is NOT connected via USB (SATA, IDE, etc are still Ok). I’ve moved my BootToVHDs off into D:\ for this purpose. Regular VMs run just fine on the BitLocker'ed drive.

All in all, it works exactly as it should. I have no idea it’s there and my machine seems just as fast.

Let me know it you have any questions.

All in all, an interesting experience. I'm glad it went so well. You can even BitLocker USB drives as well with BitLocker To Go.

Related Links

Less Virtual, More Machine - Windows 7 and the magic of Boot to VHD
Step-By-Step: Turning a Windows 7 DVD or ISO into a Bootable VHD Virtual Machine
Windows 7 Screencast – BitLocker To Go
BitLocker area on technet.microsoft.com
BitLocker Technical Overview – the must read
BitLocker Interview and demos on edge.technet.com – a really good overview created by Adam Bomb.
KB Article on the BitLocker Drive Prep Tool
Windows 7 Dual Boot with Bitlocker

The Weekly Source Code 46 - Jeff Key rocks Taskbar Meters that Monitor your Windows 7 CPU and Memory and Disk in the Taskbar

Scott Hanselman — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:44:53 GMT

It's funny to watch things go viral, even just a little viral on the Internet. Here's what happened, but more importantly, we'll talk about the code. Let's also make it complete clear that Jeff Key rocks. See picture at left, in between his two "lame" creations."

First, I did a post earlier this week called "Light it Up: List of Applications that use new Windows 7 Features." A day or two later I got an instant message from my former-roommate and part-time belay Jeff Key (@JeffreyKey on Twitter) (actually, that's all a complete lie, but, Jeff and I are friendly acquaintances for many years and have each other on IM) that said:

Saw your Win7 features post yesterday, so whipped this up last night and posted it on codeplex this morning:

http://taskbarmeters.codeplex.com/ kind of lame, but that's how i roll

For years Jeff has lived the mantra "Talk is Cheap, Show Me the Code." And he does, with some of the most inspired little .NET-based utilities out there asking for little else but our undying admiration and gratitude. That is how Jeff rolls. I visited his CodePlex site and saw it had 11 downloads.

I tweeted it and forgot about it. Then that tweet got picked up by Download.com (which I've heard of and whole gave credit to Jeff) Life Rocks 2.0 (which I've never heard of and who gave credit to no one) and then Lifehacker (which I have heard of and who "via'ed" Life Rocks). Next, I returned to CodePlex and saw that it had 4152 downloads! Congrats to Jeff for being so "lame!" ;)

The Code

Why would Jeff be so down on himself and say the code is "lame" when clearly people were (are) going bananas and downloading these little utils? Well, because it's so darn easy to do, this was likely the source of Jeff's intense guilt. ;) The Windows API Code Pack makes it easy.

ASIDE: In fact, WPF on .NET 4 makes it even easier because it includes the new TaskbarItemInfo class that lets you do this from XAML. Pete Brown from my team has a great write-up on Showing Progress in the Windows 7 Taskbar with WPF 4 on his blog.

First, since his apps are specific to Windows 7, he checks first to make sure it's OK to continue. Note that it IS very possible to make apps that work great from XP to Windows 7, but these apps are little Windows 7 showcases, so you can see why he'd want to check for this:

if (!TaskbarManager.IsPlatformSupported)
{
    MessageBox.Show("Sorry, but this app only works on Window 7.", "Aw snap!", MessageBoxButton.OK, MessageBoxImage.Error);
    Application.Current.Shutdown();
}

To update the Taskbar (Superbar) Progress Bar he wrote a little helper because he wanted the colors to be green, yellow or red depending on the value of the CPU usage or Memory usage:

public void SetTaskBarStatus(int value)
{
    if (value < 0)
    {
        value = 0;
    }
    else if (value > 100)
    {
        value = 100;
    }

    var state = TaskbarProgressBarState.Normal;

    if (value > _settings.Yellow)
    {
        state = value < _settings.Red ? TaskbarProgressBarState.Paused : TaskbarProgressBarState.Error;
    }

    TaskbarManager.Instance.SetProgressState(state);
    TaskbarManager.Instance.SetProgressValue(value, 100);
}

Then he just sets up a little System.Timer love and sets the Progress Bar values appropriately for Memory...

public partial class App : Application
{
    private ComputerInfo    _computerInfo;
    private ulong            _totalPhysicalMemory;

    protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
    {
        base.OnStartup(e);

        _computerInfo = new ComputerInfo();
        _totalPhysicalMemory = _computerInfo.TotalPhysicalMemory;

        var mainWindow = new MainWindow();
        mainWindow.Tick += WhenTimerTick;
        mainWindow.Show();
    }

    private void WhenTimerTick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        var available = (double)(_totalPhysicalMemory-_computerInfo.AvailablePhysicalMemory) / _totalPhysicalMemory;
        ((MainWindow)sender).SetTaskBarStatus((int)(available * 100));
    }
}

or CPU...

public partial class App : Application
{
    private readonly PerformanceCounter _counter = new PerformanceCounter();

    protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
    {
        base.OnStartup(e);

        _counter.CategoryName = "Processor";
        _counter.CounterName = "% Processor Time";
        _counter.InstanceName = "_Total";

        var mainWindow = new MainWindow();
        mainWindow.Tick += WhenTimerTick;
        mainWindow.Show();
    }

    private void WhenTimerTick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        ((MainWindow)sender).SetTaskBarStatus((int)_counter.NextValue());
    }
}

Jeff also adds some JumpLists to launch Task Manager or Resource Monitor on right-click as well. Nice touch! A little polish there.

Also easy to do with the Windows 7 APIs in the Windows API Code Pack.

var jumpList = JumpList.CreateJumpList();
var systemFolder = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.System);

jumpList.AddUserTasks(new JumpListLink(Path.Combine(systemFolder, "taskmgr.exe"), "Open Task Manager")
{
      IconReference = new IconReference(Path.Combine(systemFolder, "taskmgr.exe"), 0)
});

jumpList.AddUserTasks(new JumpListLink(Path.Combine(systemFolder, "perfmon.exe"), "Open Resource Monitor")
{
      IconReference = new IconReference(Path.Combine(systemFolder, "perfmon.exe"), 0),
    Arguments = "/res"
});

jumpList.Refresh();

Nice job, Jeff Key. You rock. So, Dear Reader, go light up YOUR applications under Windows 7. Enjoy!

Patching this Open Source Project and adding a Disk IO Meter

A day later, @ScottMuc tweeted me about adding a Disk IO Meter and we went back and forth about it on Twitter. He eventually submitted a patch to CodePlex. While Jeff hasn't updated his code with that patch (maybe he'll make me an admin and I can do it), I'm able to patch my local copy, of course.

Useful Link: Example: How to contribute a patch to an Open Source Project

Downloading ScottMuc's patch and simply right clicking (using Tortoise SVN) and clicking Apply Patch gives me a new TaskbarDiskIOMeter project that I can then add to the larger solution. The only problem with the patch was that it refers to a binary file called Drive.ico that didn't get included in the .patch file. I found one and added it and now we've got a Disk IO monitor as well. :)

Enjoy!

1. Get Windows 7 and the SDK

Windows SDK

2. Develop and Test Your Application

Get the Windows API Code Pack
Learn about Application Compatibility
Read the Windows 7 Application Quality Cookbook
Download the Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers

3. Get the Windows 7 Logo

Learn about the Pledge Program
Get the Windows 7 Logo

4. Light Up Your Application with Windows 7

Read the Windows 7 Developer Guide
Learn how to Develop for Windows 7

Related Links

Connectify creates and shares Virtual WiFi Hotspots with Windows 7

Scott Hanselman — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:58:04 GMT

Somewhere around 2002, Microsoft Research started trying to figure out how to virtualize a WiFi adapter so one physical adapter could act as multiple virtual adapters. This functionality is actually baked into Windows 7, so if you've got 7, you've got this.

Fast forward to today and there's a new product in Beta called "Connectify." Since I just started using a new 4G WiMAX product called Clear I thought this would be the perfect match.

First, on my Dell Mini 9, I made a connection with Clear.com's WiMAX.

Then, I simply ran Connectify, gave it a new secret WPA passphrase, and created a new WiFi hotspot. I could have called the HotSpot anything and the passphase can be anything.

Next, over on my Lenovo T60p, I checked out the list of WiFi hotspots nearby:

There it is. For the test, I disconnected my primary WiFi and connected only to the Connectify spot and it worked famously. I was sharing my Clear.com connection with two laptops.

I love this product and I know I'll use it all the time. The real question is going to be how they price it. I'd totally pay $19.95 for this to connect up to, say, 3 people. If they try to charge $40 for a basic service, that's going to be a hard sell in my opinion. Personally, I have no idea how much they intend to charge, I just caution them and hope they think about this.

Isn't this just Internet Connection Sharing?

This was my first question. I asked their support and suggested they add the answer to their FAQ. It's a very good answer and spot on:

The ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) feature you mention is really ICS + Ad Hoc WiFi.

My quick response is:

1) It's a real wifi access point, not an ad hoc Wifi connection.

2) The Virtual WiFi driver feature in Windows 7 lets us set up your Wifi access point, while actually staying attached to another Wifi network at the same time. With the old ICS/ad hoc thing, you could not use your internet connection for anything but the ad hoc sharing. (ie, you needed to get your internet from another card).

3) I realize you're at Microsoft, but ICS has severe issues. It loses all of your settings every time the machine reboots for example, making it effectively useless for anything but a quick demo.

Makes total sense to me. ICS is nice if you have two network cards, but it's hardly convenient or easy.

One unrelated caveat:

Warning: You need to check with your provider if you're planning on sharing your connection. I'm planning on using it from, for example, my hotel to share with my phone, or at a coffee shop to share with maybe one additional person. Share smartly. From Connectify's site:

Am I allowed to share my Internet?

This depends on the terms of service of your Internet Service Provider. Many have terms against reselling the connections, however sharing with friends, family and your other computers is generally fine.

It works fantastically. The UI is a little goofy, particularly the form validation is unclear. Make sure your WPA password is at least 8 characters or you'll get flummoxed.

Still, Connectify is a winner and I wish them all the best!

Light it Up: List of Applications that use new Windows 7 Features

Scott Hanselman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:03:26 GMT

I'm digging Windows 7 more and more. So much so, that I'm watching out for apps that use new features like Jump Lists, Libraries, Power Management, Taskbar Progress Bars, Icon overlays, Multitouch, Ribbon, High DPI, Sensors, Locations, etc. I thought I'd start a post listing the applications that are using new features in Windows 7. Basically what apps "Light up" on Windows 7.

Yes, I realize that this list will soon (weeks? months?) include every Windows app, but it's nice to have it now while we're all playing with our shiny new toys.

Here's the ones that I've noticed. Add the ones you've found in the comments and I'll update the list!

Gmail Notifier Plus

This little app sits in your Windows 7 "Superbar" and checks your Gmail. You get tasks as well as a list of your unread email and a preview of each mail. There's even a nice little number overlay showing the number of unread mail.

WinSnap

This is a screen capture utility and when it's pinned to the Taskbar it gives you a JumpList for taking screenshots.

Google Chrome 4 and Internet Explorer 8 and FireFox 3.6 (Daily Alpha Build)

As of this writing, both IE8 and Google Chrome have Windows 7 features. Chrome includes JumpLists and Tasks and IE8 supports not only those, but also Aero Previews of individual tabs (rather than just windows.) Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 also includes just the Tab Preview feature. Now that Windows 7 is out, I'd expect everyone to start ramping up the UX (User Experience) to get lit-up on 7.

The preview of individual tabs keeps me coming back to IE8. It's a REALLY nice feature and it's hard to get along without it.

One subtle but irritating thing I did notice, was that the Aero Previews for Firefox 3.61a1 (build 2) are really unclear and poorly dithered. Here's an IE8 preview showing cnn.com next to FireFox showing the same page.

I'm sure they'll fix it, but it's irritating to my eye. I immediately noticed it. I'll add Chrome whenever they add this feature.

IE8

Firefox 3.6a1 build 2

Zune 4 and (kinda) iTunes 9

Zune 4 includes Quickplay and Smart DJ tasks, and iTunes just includes two hard-coded tasks. Zune also ups the Win7 ante with its smaller and docked and minimized view, which is the hotness.

iTunes also supports some Taskbar controls, but misses the point but not putting Album pictures in the Taskbar Preview.

Windows Live Messenger

I have a love-hate relationship with the current Windows Live Messenger. Initially I was really mad that (on 7) it wouldn't minimize to the tray (that thing next to the clock, not really called the tray, but I will call it that, so meh on you). Instead, it sticks around the Taskbar forever. While I understand that Windows 7 has a new UX aesthetic, I would appreciate an option. At this point, the option is to right-click on the icon, click Compatibility and basically lie to it, telling Messenger that it is running on Vista. Of course, then you lose the Windows 7 features, like the very full-featured Jump Lists:

Paint.NET 3.5 Alpha

"The latest alpha build of Paint.NET v3.5 will now use DirectWrite instead of GDI for the Text tool if you are running Windows 7. Get it while it’s hot."

This means that Paint.NET 3.5 not only looks better on Windows 7 (and certainly different than it used to look) but it's also crazy fast. Be sure to try the multi-threaded Font Dropdown as well.

Expression Encoder 3

I encode most of my videos using Expression Encoder and it lights up the Taskbar button with a progress bar letting me know how far along it is without me having to restore the main window.

ImgBurn

Even though DVD/CD ISO Image Burning is built into Windows 7, I still like the UI and additional information that ImgBurn provides. It also uses the Taskbar button as a Progress Bar which is a subtle, but nice touch.

WinZip 14

WinZip 14 ups the ante with not only support for JumpLists, but also Touch Screen support (!), Libraries and Explorer Preview. The Explorer Preview support may be enough for me to move away from 7-zip, although if you keep your zip files associated with Explorer they'll be openable as folders on the left pane, so it's a toss-up. It also includes interestingly, features to "Zip My Documents" as well as a half-dozen other one-click options to Zip up various "My" folders. A nice touch. Note, don't just click through their installer, as it installs Google Toolbar unless you say otherwise.

AusLogics Disk Defrag

Disk Defrag 3 from Auslogics has a very clean interface...it looks like I wish Win7's defrag looks, although I understand that most people don't want all the details and pictures. It also includes Progress Bar integration and a little overlay to tell you it's running as Admin. It's FREE for Home Users.

PowerArchiver

I tend to lean towards 7-zip for its minimalist UI, but PowerArchiver has JumpLists and Icon Overlays. Oddly, they call the Win7-looking interface the "Power Users Interface," presumably as to avoid freaking out your grandpa who's zipping stuff up with the Classic Interface. The whole package is close but not 100%. For example, they use an icon overlay during an extract rather than a progress bar. That's just wrong, and it should be fixed ASAP.

Trillian Astra 4.1

Trillian is an IM and Chat client that integrates with Google, Windows Live Messenger, Facebook and more. I find it a little TOO out there from an interface perspective for my tastes, but many people swear by it. I like my apps to be a little Vanilla, or French Vanilla. Trillian is Rocky Road Chocolate and flaunts it. The new 4.1 version has Jump Lists, File Transfer Progress Bars, and even a Taskbar Preview of Video Calls in progress, which is a nice touch (I'm talking to you, Skype).

Basically anything with a Recent Items List

Make sure to right click on most of your apps in the Taskbar. The ones that include a "Recent Items List" will usually get a free JumpList not only in the Taskbar, but also the Start Menu.

Ok, what apps did I miss?

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