Microsoft announced this week that it will no longer offer Windows XP for sale and is ending support in 2009, although it will continue partial support, whatever that means, for another five years. Vista has been generally deemed a ignominious bust for the giant of Redmond and now Windows 7, the next iteration, is due out next year. By making XP a dead end, the marketing boys are hoping that everyone who chose not to 'upgrade' to Vista will be compelled to buy the new version.
The announcement produced a flurry of blog posts about where you can still buy XP install discs and how to keep the system running on your machine indefinitely. Personally, I'll be going Apple with my next system if the price is right. Alternatively, Ubuntu Linux has developed to the point that it offers a viable option for the average user and it's free. Windows no longer has to be the default choice. If you are a contented XP user, it should be possible to avoid giving it up for several years to come.
In the meantime, here are a few suggestions to keep your XP system looking sharp and getting the job done.
Objectdock by Stardock
The free version of this software operates much like the application dock in the Mac OS, opening files and launching programmes. Faster and easier to use than the Windows Start menu, it also looks mega cool when the dock icons along the edge of the screen expand as you mouse over them. Put the cursor over a file icon and a submenu is displayed that allows you to open a specific file or folder directly. Get rid of all those icons cluttering up your desktop and still have one-click access to everything on you machine. Download from Stardock.
Evernote
A couple of years ago I came across this note taking application and was not overly impressed, but the new version 3 is a whole different animal. It is a single repository for all my text files, easily organized and searchable. The interface is an endless scrolling tape that you can type text into, drag and drop documents onto or with one click clip anything from almost any source, even handwriting. You can also send it e-mail or pictures from your cell phone.
Evernote time stamps and titles each entry, then a small pop up box allows you to apply tags to the item. Find items by selecting tags or using the search feature. Entries are automatically saved and your database is regularly backed up to free, secured storage space on the Evernote website. Close the application window and it runs in the background, ready to reappear instantaneously when needed. I have tried various wikis and file databases, but for organization, research, note taking, to do lists and just about everything else, nothing is as easy and complete as Evernote. Free to download for PC or Mac from Evernote.
Truecrypt
The financial information, passwords, etc. that you have on your hard drive is information that you would prefer not to share with crackers or identity thieves, but text files on a computer connected to the Internet or in an online backup site can never be absolutely secure. Truecrypt creates a file of any size you designate on your hard drive and turns it into an encrypted information vault that only you can access. Files can be added, edited or deleted as with any other folder, but close the Truecrypt volume and it disappears, accessible only with your password. Backup your Truecrypt volume to online storage or a USB thumb drive and never worry whether your files are secure. The encryption algorithm used is the same one employed by the United States government for Top Secret documents, so it should be good enough for you. Free to download for all operating systems.
No comments:
Post a Comment