FIRST EDITION. By Jason Sweet. Windows 7 Preview. Lynx Media, Inc Chandler Blvd Ste 202 Valley Village, CA

Transcription

1 FIRST EDITION Helping Publishers Fulfill Their Dreams January 2009 By Jason Sweet Windows 7 Preview or most people, the idea of upgrading to another version of Microsoft's computer F operating system is not a happy one. The company s last operating system release Windows Vista is not particularly well regarded. It can be a resource-hog (read: slow), has high system hardware requirements, simple tasks seemed to take an extra step or two, maddening program control issues and various program incompatibilities led many people, particularly corporate IT professionals, to stick with Windows XP. However, Microsoft's Windows 7, which is currently in pre-release form, has received a lot of positive reviews. Microsoft is framing its new OS as a lean and efficient environment, with a number of focused improvements on the user s experience. Overall, Windows 7 is a lighterweight operating system than Windows Vista, and it will be able to run on less powerful hardware. Graphical Improvements Graphically, Windows 7 isn't a radical shift from Vista The same Start button appears in the bottom left corner and the slick graphical effects are still visible. What has undergone a significant facelift is the taskbar which now looks and works like Mac OS X s Dock: a row of big, square program icons representing your favorite programs, whether they re running or not. It has taken over the launching functions of the old uick Launch Toolbar. Program icons can be "pinned" anywhere along the taskbar for easy, repeated use. There are also Task bar in Windows Chandler Blvd Ste 202 Valley Village, C

2 Peeking" at windows; switching to a window briefly just to read something within the window but not actually interact with the window. "jump lists" that pop out from the icons in the taskbar and start menu, showing frequently used or recent actions. It s clear that Microsoft is promoting the idea of using the taskbar as the central place to launch common tasks. number of windows management options have been added in recognition that people tend only to use one or two windows concurrently; Windows 7 makes organizing windows quicker and easier. nother common task that 7 improves is "peeking" at windows; switching to a window briefly just to read something within the window but not actually interact with the window. Interface Changes significant part of the Windows UI is Explorer. Windows 7 introduces a new but potentially confusing - concept named Libraries. Libraries provide a view into parts of the file system with organization optimized for different kinds of files. What does this mean? mong other changes, the Pictures, Documents and Movies folders have been replaced by virtual library folders. Click the Pictures library, for example, to see all the pictures on your entire PC or even your network, no matter what folders they re really in. Search has also been improved considerably. From your Windows 7 machine, you can now easily search through other PCs on your network. Place the folders from another PC into a library, do a search on that library, and you'll search the other PC's folders. In addition, search results are easier to scan, and they present more information for each file. It's also easier to filter searches using file name, author, and file type, because those filters appear just underneath the Windows Explorer search box when you put your cursor into the box. Windows 7 cuts down on annoying warnings and nagging screens including Vista's most visible annoyance, User ccount Control. Microsoft notifications have been consolidated into a single icon at the right of the taskbar, and you can now decide under what circumstances Windows will warn you before taking certain actions. The Taskbar also pops up alerts that are more detailed than Vista's Chandler Blvd Ste 202 Valley Village, C

3 when it finds problems with your security or hardware. Network administrators will welcome another addition: the PowerShell scripting command line language that helps IT staff to perform system and network administration. lso notable about Windows 7 is what's missing. Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker are now gone. However, all of them will be available as free downloads from Microsoft. Performance Improvements Speed improvements are being reported such as starting up the computer, copying files, waking it from 'sleep mode' and launching programs. Microsoft claims that it is less bloated, has improved memory management and reduces power consumption on laptops. In addition, the company says it will protect the operating system from poorly written or problematic hardware drivers. Conclusion Even at this early stage, it's clear that Windows 7 is a real improvement over Windows Vista and could well help expunge the bad reputation of Vista. It cleans up some of Vista's rough edges, adds useful new capabilities and most likely won't have the same problems with hardware that Vista did. Will this latest operation system help Microsoft earn back a level of respect it has lost with recent Windows Vista? It s too early to tell but even in its preliminary form, Windows 7 looks very promising. Jump list provide quick access Getting XP Users to Switch Business customers have been slow to switch from Windows XP to Vista, with just 21 percent of Windows users running Vista. More than 65 percent still use XP and it is these users that Microsoft hopes to convert with a leaner, more responsive experience. Some testers are reporting that even running on older computer systems, Windows 7 performs quite well. For those worried about incompatible hardware drivers, Windows 7 features a new load driver feature in the case where an upgrade is blocked because of an incompatible or missing driver that is needed to properly boot the system, you can instead load a new or updated driver and continue with the upgrade. Some apparent downsides will include a cumbersome, multi-step upgrading process, and that while the Windows 7 UI is improved over Vista, those users switching from XP will still need to relearn Windows Chandler Blvd Ste 202 Valley Village, C

4 Window 7 Explorer Windows 7 Libraries Chandler Blvd Ste 202 Valley Village, C

5 Dave s & By Dave Steffy I want to send a question about one of the fields on the Transaction screen to Lynx Media Support. How do I take a screen shot, or picture of what is on my monitor? To take a screen shot, press the Print Screen button on your keyboard, usually located in the top row and to the right of the F12 function key. Then right click into the body of an , and click paste (or click the Paste button in a new Microsoft Word document). The picture is now a part of an you can send (or send the Word document as an attachment) of what is displayed on your computers monitor. The screen shot should include the entire screen along with all windows or message boxes relevant to the question. I set the status of a subscriber to Kill and have since run Update. Why is this subscriber still showing for this publication? This is an audited publication, subscribers set to status=k are not deleted. The audit agencies expect to be able to inspect canceled records for any other additional activity. However, if the publication is not audited, the subscription entry is deleted upon running the next Update. The customer entry is not deleted since there may be subscriptions to other publications. How do I set up a subscriber as nonexpiring? Set the term to zero (0). The start issue will default to then next issue to be served, the expire issue will show as N.., and the Remaining Issues will be set to zero (0). Which First Edition reports are affected by a Major Update? s a general rule, all of the reports that prompt for a specific issue, or range of issues, would be the reports that change as a result of an Update. ll reports that prompt for a date range are not affected by an Update. I noticed several subscribers have been set to Postal Suspend after running an Update but there is no record of a change in status in the Customer Service Notes. What might cause this? If the Postal Suspend option in the Miscellaneous tab in the Transaction program has been set to Postal Suspend, Update automatically sets the subscribers status to Postal Suspend.. I noticed several fields in the Transaction screen are no longer appearing. Where did they go and how do I fix it? It sounds like these fields were just turned off. Go into Setup, Fields, click the ctive tab, click the Subscriber button. Click the check boxes to turn on the desired fields. Note, turning on/off these fields does not lose data, it just controls whether a particular field is displayed. I am trying to print mailing labels and it's suppose to print 30 labels per sheet, 3 across, 10 down but it's previewing and printing 3 across and 8 down and leaving a substantial empty space at the bottom of each sheet. Why isn t it printing a complete standard sheet of mailing labels? It sounds like the printer has been reconfigured to print on special size paper (perhaps for brochures). Change the printer configuration to print on standard sized paper Chandler Blvd Ste 202 Valley Village, C