Reviews and Tutorials

Upgrade Free VMware ESXi 4.0 to ESXi 5.0

VMware ESXi 5.0 is now called VMware vSphere Hypervisor, but as before is free to download and use.

Upgrading from VMware ESXi 4.0 to VMware ESXi 5.0 is pretty easy and straight forward:

As always, before you proceed with an upgrade, make sure you have up to date backups
Go to www.vmware.com login to your WMvare account (if you don't have an account, registration is free) and download free VMware vSphere Hypervisor (CD ISO). Make sure you save provided license key.
Burn downloaded installation ISO file to a CD
Shut down all virtual machines and shut down Wmvare host

iOS 5 best new features

Apple finally released long awaited iOS 5.0 upgrade. This upgrade available for following devices:

iPhone 4S
iPhone 4
iPhone 3GS
iPad 2
iPad
iPod touch (4th generation)
iPod touch (3rd generation)

Apple boasts that there are over 200 new features in this release. Lets look into most important ones.

Email and MS Exchange sync improvements

Email app finally allows to flag emails - very welcomed feature! Was really missing this from my old Windows Mobile phone.

Synchronising Exchange Tasks is also very useful - no more need to use calendar instead of task list. iOS also allows to create location based reminders.

You can now perform some basic email text formatting - bold, italic, underline

Notifications

Notifications used to be one of the worst implemented features of iOS. Apple may have borrowed Notification Centre idea from Android but works really well. Just swipe from top of the screen in any app to bring notification screen up.

iCloud

Apple's much hyped iCloud allows to synchronize your all iOS5 devices over Apple's cloud service. You can also back-up your camera roll, accounts, documents, settings, etc. Apple gives 5GB storage space for free, but you can buy more if you need. Music, apps, and books purchased via Apple don't reduce your storage allowance.
Email and Notes sync over iCloud only work with @me.com email accounts.

iMessage

Probably inspired by Blackberry Messenger new Apple's iMessage allows iOS 5 users send and receive free text, photo and video messages. Message tracking and read receipts are also supported. There is no separate app, simply use the usual Messages and if another party is on compatible device iMessage will be used instead of SMS.

Newsstand

Automatically puts all magazine and newspaper subscriptions into one place

Twitter integration

Allows tweeting from number of built-in apps: Safari, Camera, Maps, Youtube, Photos.

Camera app improvements

You can now go straight from the Sleep screen straight into the camera app - double click Home button to bring up the shortcut. May save you half of a second or so...
Much more useful addition - you can now use Volume-Up button to take a picture. Allows to help the phone more steady while taking a picture.

There are obviously much more new features, let me know if you think I missed something important.

Windows 8 Developer Preview - First look

On 13 September 2011 Microsoft released Windows 8 Developer Preview version. You can install it and have a play yourself. Read this article to find out how.
Be aware that this release is very early pre-beta version which is not really intended to be used by general public. A lot of things inside Windows 8 may be changed, added or removed. Nevertheless this release gives you some ideas of which way Microsoft Windows is heading.

It's pretty obvious that new Microsoft OS is very much about touchscreen devices. Obviously Microsoft can see success of Apple iPad and wants a peace of increasing tablet market.
For the first time Windows 8 will run on low powered ARM devices.

Microsoft are saying there will be only one version of Windows 8 which will run on all devices including tablets, notebooks and desktop PCs. Interesting to see whether this actually works for them. We have some doubts about this approach. They already announced that ARM version will not run old x86 software, at least not without without recompiling.

Hardware requirements

Microsoft haven't really increased hardware requirements since Windows Vista, so once again you can upgrade OS without upgrading your hardware. On the other hand most people get their Windows OS upgrade only when they buy a new machine. Also, although Windows 8 can happily work with old fashion keyboard and mouse, to get the best experience you will need a touchscreen device.

1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch

New Metro interface

Microsoft says Windows Metro interface will be the main Windows home for all devices including tablets, laptops and desktops. Most people have mixed feelings about this. It works really well on touchscreen devices, however on a large desktop PC monitor massive tiles looks a bit out of place. Navigating with mouse and keyboard is possible, but again, it just doesn't feel quite right.
As far as tablets and other touchscreen devices are concerned Microsoft Windows 8 Metro looks really promising.

Multitasking and split screen

Windows 8 Metro offers much more advanced multitasking than iOS or Android. You can not only have multiple apps running in a background, but can split the screen and have your stocks app opened right next to a game you are playing.

Live Tiles

Large interactive tiles provide lots of useful information without even opening apps - much more useful than static Android and iOS icons. You can see weather information without even opening weather app, calendar tile shows your forthcoming appointments and so on. Obviously third software developers will make a good use of this great feature.

Cloud Sync

We haven't seen this in a real world, but Microsoft promises to sync your apps and data across different devices over a cloud. App sync will only work with new metro apps though.

Running Windows Desktop apps on tablets?

Another potential benefit is that should you need more power from your Windows 8 tablet you can launch Windows Desktop and do everything you normally do with your desktop PC. You can even have your screen split between Metro and desktop apps. One catch here is that old x86 software will not run on ARM devices, at least not without recompiling the code. It would be interesting to see how this affects batter live and performance of ARM devices. Some argue, that it would make more sense to remove old desktop code from ARM version completely and leave Metro.

Will it succeed?

There are number of unanswered important questions, such as performance on low powered tablet hardware or power efficiency. Microsoft ability to persuade developers to quickly create large number to hight quality Metro apps is immensely important as well. If Microsoft get these things right, Windows 8 tablets have huge potential and will definitely give Apple iOS devices a run for their money.

Regarding Metro on desktop and laptop devices I am much more dubious. Microsoft may well improve Metro experience on desktops, but I have no doubt that there will be a massive resistance if Microsoft tries to move all its Windows users to Metro. And what about business users? I just don't see large businesses letting Metro interface anywhere near their users. Maybe Microsoft will allow disabling all Metro features via group policy; maybe there will be different Windows 8 Business version; or maybe Windows 7 will remain OS of choice for businesses? Will have to wait to see...

Old style Desktop

Windows Metro interface is your default home and stating point in Windows 8, however old good Windows Desktop is still available. On the first look it looks almost exactly the same as Windows 7 desktop. To get there you have to click on a Desktop app in the Metro home screen. At the moment you can't make Windows go automatically into the desktop on startup. On top of that, clicking the Start button, simply throws you back into Metro home screen!

To launch an old type Windows software from within Desktop interface you must either have a shortcut on the Desktop or program must be pinned to the taskbar. Otherwise you have to use Metro search function. Click on a Start button (to launch Metro interface) and start typing. Once your program appears in the search results click on it and your will be sent back to the desktop where your application is now launching. It's all pretty quick in practice, but it feels weird jumping from one interface to another just to launch a desktop app.

Microsoft will obviously have a huge pressure from its massive desktop user base to return Start Menu and allow Windows Desktop to be the default interface. If they are planning to resit this, much better Metro and Desktop integration is needed.

So, what's new in Windows 8 desktop so far?

Improved Task Manager.

Task manager in Windows hasn't changed for ages. Windows 8 introduces improved task manager and it looks really good. There is a basic version which displays running and suspended apps and allows to close them.

But click on the More details button and a completely new beast is revealed. It shows you tons of useful information about the system which wasn't available before. Pros and power user will really like this.

Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer received a MS Office style ribbon which now is pretty standard in Windows. You can see why Microsoft did this - it's definitely more touch friendly and is still fine to use with keyboard and mouse.

More to follow...

Installing Windows 8 Developer Preview on Oracle VirtualBox

So, Microsoft have showed off Windows 8 Developer Preview and it's time to put our hands on it. Obviously this is very early development release (not even beta) so a lot will change by the time final version is released. Nevertheless is allways interesting to see how future Windows version may look and feel.

First of all head off to Microsoft Dev Center and download your Windows 8 installation image. There are number of versions. The smallest (2.8GB) Windows Developer Preview English, 32-bit (x86) version will be absolutely fine for our needs.
Downloaded image is in .iso format. If you plan to install Windows 8 on Oracle VirtualBox (about this in a minute), downloaded .iso file wil be fine. However if you want to install it on a physical PC, you need to burn this file on a DVD using burning software which have an option to burn .iso files. Such as Nero Express or a free CDBurnerXP.

If you have a spare PC lying around you can install Windows 8 on it. It installs in exactly the same way as Windows 7. And you don't need a particularly powerful machine. Windows 8 Developer Preview minimum requirements are:

1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch

Obviously not everyone have not used PCs around, but that's not a problem. You can install Windows 8 on a free Oracle VirtualBox. In this case Windows 8 will run as virtual machine inside your existing Windows XP, Vista or 7 installation. It may sound complex but it's not! Obviously your host computer must be much more powerful than Windows 8 minimum requirements (it will have to run two versions of Windows at the same time!)

Go to VirtualBox download page and download the latest version VirtualBox for Windows hosts. At the time of writing this article the latest version was version 4.1.4. Good news is that this version now fully supports Windows 8 Developer Preview so everything works with default settings without any advanced tweaking.
Install and run VirtualBox
Click on the New button, type name for your virtual machine and make sure you select Microsoft Windows 8 from the drop downs.
Follow the remaining wizard steps. Don't worry if you don't understand meaning of all the options. Default settings will be absolutely fine. At the final step click Create. New Windows 8 Virtual Machine will appear in your VirtualBox Manager
Click Start in VirualBox Manager. First Run Wizard will pop up. You have two options here:
- Either put earlier burned Windows 8 DVD into your DVD drive and select DVD drive letter from the Media Source list.
- Or click on a folder icon next to the Media Source check-box and browse to select Windows Developer Preview .iso file you downloaded earlier from Microsoft.
Click Next and then Start. Installation will start automatically.

First part of Windows 8 installation looks exactly the same as standard Windows 7 installation (this will probably change in later releases) so there is not much to write about. Some screenshots below:

On this screen choose Custom (advanced)

After computer restarts you are finally presented with the new Windows 8 style interface.
First of all type your new computer name.

On Settings screen you can either choose Express Settings which will set-up updates, safety features, sharing, etc. according to Microsoft liking, or customise these settings yourself.

On the next, Log on screen Windows 8 offers to log-on using your Windows Live ID.

If you choose not to use Windows Live ID, Windows 8 still tries to tempt you on the next screen. In future, it may be actually beneficial to use the Live ID as in this case Microsoft will sync some of your settings across all your computers (IE favourites, history, shortcuts, passwords, etc.) In future Microsoft should also sync your purchased Apps (only new type Metro apps though).

Few more minutes while Windows finishes configuration and you are on the brand new Windows 8 home screen!

If you can't launch any of the new Metro style tile apps check here.
Read here about our first thoughts on Windows 8.

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