http://www.winextra.com/forums/tags/microsoft Bring back the eXtra in Windows en-US Tue, 21 May 2013 06:18:45 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://www.winextra.com/forums/search.php http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/10909#post-54562 Mon, 21 May 2012 13:13:32 +0000 dontor 54562@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>A fair question may be how many of you are going to stay with windows bases os's for your devises? If not, what alternatives are you considering?<br /> I have no choice for server software, so must stay with windows server os. Already use Android for phone. Have no interest in Win8 for laptop (ceased using desktops) for work stations. Currently, I feel like there is nothing out there that I am interested in. I want to be able to plug my phone into usb, transfer files, etc without all this cloud crap or restricted to only certain file types via Zune garbage. Don't want social app intergration. Just want to run business apps and maintain security on my devises. </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/10909#post-54559 Sun, 20 May 2012 17:55:44 +0000 Nate 54559@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>Microsoft powers my new car's entertainment and navigation system user interface. It doesn't recognize many ways one might make a voice command, that is, thee are very few synonyms. If one can't remember the exact phrase - too bad (that does provide lots of entertainment to passengers though). </p> <p>A couple of days ago I agreed buy a pizza for my boy from Pizza Hut, a takeout/delivery store. I knew I was within a half mile or so of one but had never been to it for take out. The car's navigation system found lots of pizza places but not the at least two within the radius it looked. I tried Siri but my phone was in hands free mode and the nav system wouldn't work with it.</p> <p>I had misgivings when I first found that I had a MS product. </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/10909#post-54557 Sun, 20 May 2012 07:15:08 +0000 Pierre 54557@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>That company will balk at no profit, however small. Obviously they hope no one's heard of <a href="http://pcdecrapifier.com/" target="_blank">PC-Decrapifier</a> (free for personal use, only $25/year for a commercial licence) &lt;img src=&quot;http://www.winextra.com/forums/my-plugins/smiley-choice/Default Smiley/icon_biggrin.gif&quot; title=&quot;:D&quot; class=&quot;bb_smilies&quot; /&gt; <br /> In fact, I wouldn't put it past MS to use PC-Decrapifier to clean the OEM computers &lt;img src=&quot;http://www.winextra.com/forums/my-plugins/smiley-choice/Default Smiley/icon_cool.gif&quot; title=&quot;8)&quot; class=&quot;bb_smilies&quot; /&gt; </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/10909#post-54556 Sat, 19 May 2012 21:23:14 +0000 Nate 54556@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>Microsoft is offering to provide its <em>Signature</em> OS without the crapware OEMs load on the machines they sell. If you already have one you can take it to one of their stores and they will uninstall it all for ... $99!!</p> <p>"Microsoft even offers up numbers to show how detrimental this OEM-installed crapware is to your system. Microsoft claims that Signature systems start up 39 percent faster, go into sleep mode 23 percent faster, and resume from sleep a whopping 51 percent faster compared to their crapware-ladened counterparts."</p> <p><a href="https://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/microsoft-to-charge-customers-99-to-remove-oem-crapware/20446" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/microsoft-to-charge-customers-99-to-remove-oem-crapware/20446</a> </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9304#post-45645 Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:47:53 +0000 Steven Hodson 45645@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>there's been an update to the software if interested</p> <p><a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/liveside/~3/rM_uf6JD4h8/new-version-of-ice-available.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/liveside/~3/rM_uf6JD4h8/new-version-of-ice-available.aspx</a> </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9304#post-45614 Sun, 06 Jun 2010 07:06:32 +0000 Pierre 45614@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>Given my graphics skills (or rather, lack of them), I'll take your word for it &lt;img src=&quot;http://www.winextra.com/forums/my-plugins/smiley-choice/Default Smiley/icon_wink.gif&quot; title=&quot;;)&quot; class=&quot;bb_smilies&quot; /&gt; </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9304#post-45612 Sun, 06 Jun 2010 06:30:11 +0000 PJ 45612@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>Thank you for the vote. The foreground snow is what took me so long to piece it together. Rather difficult to select control points between two images when most of the stuff you're selecting is little more than a shade of white....</p> <p>In reality, the difference is in the cropping of the final image. I opted to crop out the home on the far right which allowed me to include more foreground. MS ICE's algorithm included the home but dropped the foreground. The MS image also has some artifacts that are obvious if you look for them. I worked rather hard to avoid any artifacts, still, they are there as well.</p> <p>For quick and dirty images to share with friends or over the Intertubes, the MS ICE proggie is well worth the effort (rather, lack of effort). If you are a control freak, desire better results, or simply want to print large format images you'll probably be happier with the results you can get from Hugin. <a href="http://www.hugin.sf.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.hugin.sf.net</a> </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9304#post-45611 Sun, 06 Jun 2010 06:27:10 +0000 Pierre 45611@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>I think your effort image is cooler than MS's. At least, there's more snow in it &lt;img src=&quot;http://www.winextra.com/forums/my-plugins/smiley-choice/Default Smiley/icon_twisted.gif&quot; title=&quot;:twisted:&quot; class=&quot;bb_smilies&quot; /&gt; </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9304#post-45610 Sun, 06 Jun 2010 06:19:47 +0000 PJ 45610@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>I've been playing with this over the past few hours and must say that I'm very impressed with it's ease of use. The resulting panorama images are comparable to some of the images that took me hours to complete.</p> <p>MS Image Composite Editor<br /> <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/</a></p> <p>I've thrown as few as 8 images to as many as 132 images at once. Never a hiccup. Just took a bit longer is all. My results so far show that the more images included (with too much duplication of content), the more artifacts will appear in the final image.</p> <p>Easy to use, free, fast and integrates well with other MS products. What's not to like?</p> <p>A few formats to export to including .jpg, .tiff, HDR, .png and bitmaps.</p> <p>Here's an example:<br /> MS ICE Image:<br /> <img src="http://www.panamajim.com/pix/Snow Scene.jpg"></p> <p>My Effort Image:<br /> <img src="http://www.panamajim.com/pix/Snow Scene Original.jpg"></p> <p>You may well note that the color balance and contrast is much nicer in the MS image compared to mine. I was so worn out from piecing the image together, I gave up correcting the rest of the image.... </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9163/page/3#post-45134 Thu, 06 May 2010 12:59:56 +0000 James 45134@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <blockquote><p><cite>Pierre <a href="http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9163/page/2#post-44855" target="_blank">said</a>:</cite><br /> Libraries are especially useful in a LAN environment. By default, the "save as…" dialog in most programs will open the relevant library ("Documents" for a word processor, "Pictures" for a graphic editor, etc…), and you can add <em>any</em> folder to a library – including a network share. This will save you some navigation. </p></blockquote> <p>There's only one drawback - if the share you're trying to add to a library isn't indexed on the server you won't be able to add it to the library. </p>