Gnoted.com » Interesting & Funny

Test Windows 7 Features With New Online Demo Website

Dennis — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:05:51 +0000

If you are still using Windows XP or Vista and you are not sure whether to upgrade to Windows 7 soon… This could help you to make a decision.

Microsoft launched a new website demo for Windows 7, where you can test drive many features of the new version of Windows, without need to install it.

Everything is going to work inside a web browser, with a couple of clicks. That’s the only purpose of the website.

If, for some reason, you don’t want to test it online, you can also download or watch videos that demonstrate the new features of Windows 7.

But before you go to the site, you first need to meet the minimum requirements to be able to see it properly.

Minimum requirements for Windows 7 online demo

Microsoft Windows:
Only Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows 7 are supported.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later:
Only Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later are supported. I would never recommend you to use Internet Explorer but for this occasion, there is no other way.
If you do not have IE 6 or later, you can download it here

Screen Resolution:
The Virtual Demo sessions are best viewed at a screen resolution of 1024×768 or greater. Otherwise you may experience clipping of content.

US English Keyboard:
These online Virtual Demo sessions are in US English and only support US English Language Keyboards.

Cookies Enabled:
You must have cookies enabled to run these Virtual Demo sessions.
To enable cookies, follow these steps:

Select “Internet Options” from the Tools menu.
Click on the “Security” tab.
Click “Custom Level” button.
Scroll down to the “Cookies” section.

To enable:

Set “Allow cookies that are stored on your computer” to “Enable”.
Set “Allow per-session cookies” to “Enable”.
Click “OK” to save changes.

ActiveX Control:
The Microsoft “Virtual Machine Remote Control” Active X control is required by this site. If you do not have it installed, you will be asked to when launching the Virtual Demo. There are instuctions relating to this located during the install.

Just a few more notes

If you meet all of the above requirements, then you’re good to go. However…

Once you have passed the requirements, you may have need to wait a few moments while you experience the Windows “start up” since it loads a full-functioning version of Windows 7 Professional, so you can take a look and try all of the new features, without having to install the full version on your own computer.

From there on, you can follow the instructions on the website itself, because I found it to be very user friendly.

Now go ahead and visit Windows 7 Online Demo Website, and don’t forget to share your thoughts here in the comments.

New Design For Gnoted & New Name For It’s Author

Dennis — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:01:38 +0000

It has been a while since I have written a new post. My excuses for that, but I have a great story to tell you about this month and then I’m sure you’ll understand why there were no new posts during last month…

First of all, I created a new design for Gnoted. That was the most time consuming part of the whole scenario. A couple of months ago, I started to learn CSS and web design in general, and practiced a bit every day. Now this was meant to be my final test, to see if I can do it all on my own – Make a new WordPress theme.

I designed and wrote code for it, from scratch. I have literally started with empty paper and an idea… Many hours and long nights went into it, and I really did my best to take care of every single, tiny detail to make everything as perfect as I possibly can. And now finally, everything is finished. That means I can start writing posts again.

But first, let me take you through some of the aspects of the new design:

New logo

I’m sure, the first thing you noticed when you came here, was the big bold logo at the top. If I’m right, then I did my job well. I wanted it to be that way.

I intended it to be simple, catchy, bold (obviously) and without any graphics. Just letters organized in an appealing way. Among other things that I learned about design, was typography, so I wanted to implement that on my “final exam”.

Attention to detail

One of the most important things that makes design different, is attention to details.

Notice the subtle shadow on the menu above. It is not obtrusive, but fits beautifully into the whole design and creates a great feel overall.

You can see this implemented on the images above, too. Even better, go ahead and hover over the image above and notice the shadow around it.

All of these details were created using the latest CSS 3 web design standard. That’s why some of you, who use Internet Explorer, are not able to see many great details and effects. Internet Explorer doesn’t support CSS 3 and thus it’s very limited.

Here’s another opportunity for me to recommend you download a browser (Firefox or Google Chrome) that will help you experience the web to its maximum. Once again, stop using Internet Explorer, it’s old, slow, limited and it simply sucks.

Short descriptions of posts on home page

Are you tired of long introductions on some posts, when all that you want is to just see what the post is all about?

I was guilty of this one too. I used to write long intros instead of just getting straight to the point. In most cases, visitors just scan the page and leave if they don’t find something interesting fast.

That’s why I decided to write a short description of each blog post that is displayed on home page, and explain how can that blog post be of value to you. If it gets your attention, you read on, if not, you keep scanning the page. No need for frustration and wasting your valuable time.

Cool search results

I won’t post image to show you this one. I will let you experience it yourself. For example, if you would search for “Windows” by clicking the Search button on the navigation above, the results page would look like this. See? It’s easy to scan and it’s organized pretty well.

How old design looked like

For those of you who are new to this blog, you might want to know how this blog looked like and what’s the difference.

Ok, that would be enough about the design. If you want to see more, then just look around.

Now, maybe you wonder what that second part of the blog post title means.

My new name

As many of you know, my name was Gennice. And I’m not female! :) My name would exactly be “Gènnice” which is a male name in France. But here in the US, people get confused sometimes.

So i decided I can’t take it anymore… :) I went through the whole process of changing IDs and all other documents into my new name - Dennis! I wanted to be similar when it’s pronounced like my other name, so I went for Dennis, and I really like it.

So, everybody who once knew me as Gennice, can now call me Dennis. Although you can call me however you like as long as you know that I’m a male. That was the main reason I changed my name.

That’s it! Now let’s enjoy the new start with new design and new name (no, I’m not crazy, and yes, I love it)!

A Peek Inside Facebook’s New & Really Cool Office!

Dennis — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:47:07 +0000

Let’s see if I can find photos of the offices of all popular web companies and post them here. Until now, you had a chance to see How Google’s offices look like (video and photos), and also take a peek inside Digg’s offices and see where and how their people work.

Today, we will see another exciting collection of office photos. And this time it’s from famously popular, the giant of social networking - Facebook

This office is designed by the folks at Studio O+A, so the people who work at Facebook now have a new and really cool office located at Palo Alto, California, USA.

Before the redesign and construction of this 150,000-square-foot office, each of Facebook employees was asked to find out what they wanted and what would make their work experience better, more creative and more productive. And it seems they have pretty nice taste for these things…

Based on the photos taken below, the new office is indeed much more cozy and colorful. I personally love the DJ set and the bender on the wall!

I also posted the photos of old office (before it was redesigned) below these so you can see the difference.

And below are some of the photos of Facebook’s old office, before it was redesigned. Just to help you compare.

If Websites Were Like People

Dennis — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:05:49 +0000

You have probably noticed that different kinds of people use different kinds of websites regularly. That’s just the way it is.

For example, you can’t expect a serious business man to regularly use MySpace (except maybe for marketing, but that does not count as regularly). He would probably go to LinkedIn to find some like-minded people and network more.

So if people have different personalities, then websites that are being visited by those people have personalities too, right?

Here’s how some of the most visited websites would look like if they were people with personalities… :)

If you liked this, I’m sure you would like to see these three below:

What Google Will Look Like In Year 2084

Can I Download The Internet?

Twitter Since The Beginning Of The World

Inside Digg’s Office In San Francisco – Photos

Dennis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:28:17 +0000

Digg is one of the most popular social media websites on the web at the moment. I often visit Digg in search for some funny or interesting stuff and I’m also an active user there. If you’re on Digg too, you see my account here and add me to friends…

Just because i spend a lot of time browsing through this site, I wanted to find some more information about it. And I have really stumbled upon some cool info and even found a great collection of office photos inside Digg’s main headquarters in San Francisco, California, which you can see below.

Just like when you had an opportunity to see photos and video inside Google’s office which I posted a while ago, Digg’s offices are really cool and could easily compete with Google’s when it comes to design and coolness.

Here are the photos (click to enlarge):

How Many Times Has Firefox Been Downloaded?

Dennis — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:32:15 +0000

I’m sure you have heard that a while ago, Mozilla Firefox reached unbelievable one billion downloads! That is an amazing milestone for a web browser. But that could have also been expected since Firefox is an excellent browser and so many people are using it, and even many are switching to it from IE and so on…

That’s why I have some interesting site to share with you today. If you ever wondered how is it like to watch a counter that counts every single download in real time. And in this case, it counts downloads of Firefox.

So how many times has Firefox been downloaded? Yeah, it’s over billion and it’s great feeling when you see the numbers ticking in real time! Click here to go to live counter of Firefox downloads.

So this will kind of help you to understand (if you did not already) just how Firefox is successful as a browser and how much it’s growing on the market. Mozilla even made a special website that to mark the occasion and demonstrate just how large one billion really is.

My opinion is that these numbers are definitely deserved for Firefox!

And if you didn’t already, then I would really and honestly recommend you to go ahead and download Firefox so you can start enjoying the better and safer web, today!

Now something for those who already use Firefox – Did you know that you can make your internet browsing speed double time faster with these 3 hacks that you can apply on Firefox? See for yourself and enjoy the great speed!

Oh, and for big fans of Firefox – don’t forget to check out these 80 High Quality Mozilla Firefox Wallpapers. You might find one that you really enjoy!

Microsoft Windows 7 And Server 2008 Released To Market

Dennis — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:51:22 +0000

First we got our hands to Beta version of new Windows 7 and that made some really good first impression on everyone. After a while Microsoft made the Release Candidate of Windows 7 available with some added functionalities and fixed bugs. That was enough to make us so eager to see and try the last and final version of Windows 7 which we awaited for so much

And finally, Microsoft has released it’s final version to market, also known as RTM version, (RTM stands for ‘released to manufacturing’). This happened a little earlier than it was expected (3 months before Microsoft said it would happen). Nobody still knows if this final version is the same as the Build 7600 version that leaked on torrents about a week ago.

Because Microsoft already sent the final version to their distribution partners, they also sent the system requirements so it can be easily adopted and used with new computers. And I think it’s niot surprising that those requirements are the same as they were for Windows Vista. Which means it will be much easier to change to Windows 7, both for users and PC sellers.

Here’s how and when it will be released by regional languages:

What Google Will Look Like In Year 2084

Dennis — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:40:05 +0000

Ok, as I plan to better organise this blog in near future (group posts by categories), I will try to make a category that will contain some great funny and geeky stuff that I’m sure all of you will like.

So let this be one of the first posts that can be put in ‘Funny’ category together with Can I Download The Internet? and The First Person to Use Emoticons in Real Life – Video and also Developers Of Firefox Are Actually Aliens?. If you like this one, be sure to check them all out!

So, we all know what the big G stands for in today’s world of internet. Yeah, it’s Google… See how fast Google grows? They try to expand their influence even further by launching the Google Chrome OS (although it’s recent screenshots have proven to be faked).

Did you ever asked yourslef what Google will look like in about 70 or 80 years ahead? Don’t bother yourself trying to imagine all that stuff… Here’s just one cool image that should pretty much explain it all… :) Enjoy!

The screenshot of Google’s homepage in year 2084

Leaked Google Chrome OS Screenshots Faked!

Dennis — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:12:34 +0000

I’m sure everybody noticed this buzz around the new Google Chrome Operating System that Google introduced on their blog a few days ago.

Soon after the announcement, some graphic designer made a blog just for this special occasion – to be able to share the leaked screenshots of Google Chrome OS in early beta with the rest of the ‘eager-to-see’ world.

Of course those screenshots almost immediately went circling all over the net. And the most amazing part is that it was so fast! Everybody wanted to get a slice of that hot story.

Many blogs with high reputation and credibility (Engadget, Gizmodo…) blogged about it immediately after the screenshots were posted on web. It was simply one of the most talked about pieces of news these days. It also hit digg’s front page and frontpages of many other blogs.

Here’s one of the screenshots in case you didn’t see them:

But only after twelve ours, the blogger that originally posted the screenshots has admitted they are all fake! He said that he just wanted to see what it will happen if he did what he did, and now, even he is surprised by the results he got from the buzz that this thing created.

Here’s what he said about all this:

“I am sorry if you believed it. It was a really bad attempt. You all are smart people. I never planned on it getting this big. But it did. (Come one, I know the Google logo. I am actually a graphic designer, I just wanted to see reactions if it was a crappy background.) I never was going to let this go on longer than 12 hours.“

Here’s his video about faking these:

And now the most amazing part of all this!

This should be held as an example to all those internet marketers and webmasters who would like to draw fast traffic to their blogs in early days.

This blog that originally posted the fake screenshots of Google Chrome OS got over 124.000 unique visitors in just 12 hours! Simply amazing!

Here’s a screenshot of his Wordpress traffic stats for that day:

Now you see what the original idea created with great amount of buzz and around a product that was already important to everyone – Google Chrome OS, can do in just 12 hours. But I’m not saying that you should fake something like he did…

And believe it or not, now this blogger plans to keep some of these visitors by telling them that he will really post news related to Google Chrome OS in the future… Except I don’t think that someone will believe his words now…

Video Preview Of New Features in Mozilla Firefox 3.5

Dennis — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:47:07 +0000

I recently wrote about Mozilla’s new release of Firefox 3.5 RC and I’m sure many of you Firefox users have already downloaded the latest version and tried a couple of things.

Now a few days after release, Mozilla released a new video which describes every new feature in deatails.

I thought of writing about the features but now when I saw this video, I think it will tell you more than thousands words and it should be everything you need to know about these new Firefox 3.5 features.

And even better, it is all presented, step-by-step and visually so you can see exactly where some of the functions and options can be found when you open your Firefox 3.5.

Mike Beltzner gives a quick preview of what’s new and exciting in Mozilla’s latest release – Firefox 3.5 release candidate: