Did you miss out on the Windows 7 public beta and want to try it out before you actually make the leap and upgrade? Maybe you want to learn how to deploy new features in a business environment. Here’s how you can test drive Windows 7 directly from your browser.

Whether you manage 10,000 desktops or simply manage your own laptop, it’s usually best to test out a new OS before installing it.  If you’re upgrading from Windows XP you may find many things unfamiliar.  Microsoft has setup a special Windows 7 Test Drive website with resources to help IT professionals test and deploy Windows 7 in their workplaces.  This is a great resource to try out Windows 7 from the comfort of your browser, and look at some of the new features without even installing it.

Please note that the online version is not nearly as responsive as a full standard install of Windows 7.  It also does not run the full Aero interface or desktop effects, and may refresh slowly depending on your Internet connection.  So don’t judge Windows 7’s performance based on this virtual lab, but use it as a way to learn more about Windows 7 without installing it.

Getting Started

To test drive Windows 7, visit Microsoft’s Windows 7 Test Drive website (link here).

You will need to run the Windows 7 Test Drive in Internet Explorer, as it requires Active X support.

Now, click the “Take a Test Drive” link on the bottom left of the page.

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When Windows goes wrong, it can go really wrong. Worse: Often it’s extremely difficult to save your system from Windows itself. Here’s how to use a simple USB drive to free space, remove viruses, rescue passwords, and more from crunked Windows setups.

Photo by *manci*.

What You Can Fix with this Method

If you or your in-need friends or relatives can’t boot into your Windows desktop, or you can’t actually do anything once you’re into it, booting up a live Ubuntu system from a USB thumb drive, or off a burned CD, can save your system, recover files, and pull off other miracles. Here’s the short list of things we’ll cover here:

• Clean a virus with a Linux-based anti-virus app.
• Recover files and save them onto that same thumb drive, to a web storage spot like Dropbox, or to another USB drive.
• Change your login password if you’ve forgotten it, or someone’s changed it on you.
• Analyze your hard drive to figure out what’s filled it, and resize partitions if you’re dual booting and need to free up more space. continue reading…

Ever notice that when using Chrome to view some RSS feeds it works ok and on others it just displays the Raw data as a bunch of lines of text?

I didn’t think so but for the one person out there who does, this is for you.

So when you click on an RSS feed like this one http://lucas719.info/?feed=rss2 you get this:

Now this is caused by Google Chrome not autodetecting the RSS feed.

We can use this extension for Google Chrome to support the ability to autodetect RSS feeds. https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd

and now instead of just seeing Raw text data we see this:

I needed a VPN service, I needed it to be both secure and relatively easy to setup and maintain.

I tried OpenVPN, Hamachi, OpenSSH, and a few others but none of them seemed to stand out and were hard to maintain.

I stumbled across GBridge and it is pretty awesome and I wanted to share it with you.

http://www.gbridge.com/

Gbridge is a free software that can connect multiple computers. It forms a VPN between multiple computers and provides remote computer access, folder synchronization, automatic folder backup, remote computer control and/or screen sharing, and chat. Gbridge can use Google’s Gtalk network to connect remote PCs and requires Gtalk (Gmail) accounts.

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