Microsoft Mindows 7 Box-es

Polish news site CentrumXP posted several Windows 7 box shots on their website. It is not clear yet if these are official box shots or simply photoshopped to look like the real deal. Anyway, you can check them out by following the link above or by taking a look at the images below. They look like they could be legit. Let us hear your opinion in the comments.

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Looking forward to Windows 8

Already talk about Windows 7 has moved forward to Windows 8, as Microsoft last month began hiring for posts within that division. With this in mind I thought that, from a usability standpoint, I’d take a good in-depth look at Windows 7 and see what changes could have been implemented already and what we can perhaps look forward to in the future.

I want to start with Windows Explorer because this is essentially the same beast that we saw in Windows 98. Okay, so Microsoft overhauled the main interface with Vista by introducing the breadcrumb bar, but if you open an explorer window today in a basic installation of Windows 7, you’ll be very used to what you’ve seen for over ten years.

Why is this a bad thing? If we take a trip back to the good old-fashioned 20th century then we’ll see a time before the mass adoption of MP3 players, portable video players and digital cameras. The files we stored on our PCs were sparse and usually consisted only of office type documents and PDFs.

Now of course things are very different and we all have a plethora of diverse files on our PCs. For some reason however, and even though you can change the settings, the default explorer view is of mixed file types all sorted alphabetically. The option to change this to, for instance, my personal choice of grouped by file type, isn’t the easiest feature to find.

There are other omissions in the Windows 7 version of explorer too including the fact that we’re still seeing drive letters by default and compressed drives highlighted in blue when we really don’t need to any more.

Don’t get me wrong at this stage. I love Windows 7 and want it to be the best product it can be. It’s just a shame though that while Microsoft overhaul great chunks of the user interface they’re missing certain small usability issues that go along-side these. I’ll write more about this in coming chapters. (story Link)

Facebook Phishing Attack Continues

The recent Facebook phishing attack we reported on the other day has apparently continued at least for a second day.

This report on Silicon.com notes that the first one, using the FBaction.net domain, was stopped within a few hours. As we warned, it came back the next day with another domain, in this case BAction.net.

The attack comes to you in your Facebook inbox as a terse message with a link in it. Click on the link and you are prompted to log in to a fake Facebook login page. Log in and the attackers have your credentials, which they then use to pass the attack on to everyone in your Friends list. Always be certain when you log in to Facebook that you are actually logging in to facebook.com.

If you or one of your friends has this problem and Facebook finds out you may end up with Facebook resetting your password for security purposes. Be on the lookout for notices from Facebook about this. (full Story)

Sony BDP-S360 (Blu-ray)

Sony's BDP-S360 Blu-ray player ($299.99 list) is a fine example of getting more for less. It delivers even better picture quality than its predecessor, the excellent BDP-S350, yet the S360's price is $100 lower. A few sacrifices were made: You won't get the multimedia streaming features some other players in this price range offer, for example. But if you care about picture quality above all else, the S360 delivers.

Behind a fold-down door on the S360's glossy tinted face you'll find a centrally located tray mechanism, an information display, and basic playback controls. The player's forward-facing power and eject buttons in the upper corners of its face are much easier to operate than were the upward-angled buttons of the S350, especially when the unit is stacked under other components. The basic remote control is a step back from the S350's, which featured bigger buttons on a larger frame. Sony has also eliminated the eject button on the new remote, making it more likely you will smudge the player's glossy face with fingerprints when inserting and removing discs.

The S360 lacks the S-Video connection that was on the S350 but retains the HDMI and component video outputs that support HD video formats. Like the LG BD370, the S360 also features coaxial and optical digital audio outputs for greater flexibility when connecting to an amplifier that may not support HDMI audio. As with most Blu-ray players, the S360 settles for a composite video cable; manufacturers should include HDMI cables, instead, for superior picture quality and simplified setup.

An Ethernet port on the S360 allows simplified firmware updates over a broadband connection, and a USB port can be filled with 1GB or more of flash storage to enable support for BD-Live downloadable multimedia features. The cheap cost of flash memory nowadays should make this optional upgrade standard, but at least this player's USB port is hidden out of sight; the LG BD370 leaves the memory sticking out the front of the player.

Unlike other $300 players such as the Samsung BD-P1600 and Panasonic DMP-BD60, the S360 doesn't support Internet-based streaming of services such as Netflix's Watch Instantly (Samsung) or YouTube (Panasonic). The player supports JPEG and MP3 multimedia file playback, but only from a recorded disc (Blu-ray, CD, or DVD) and not also via USB like other players, including the aforementioned Panasonic and Samsung models.

At 41 seconds, the S360's Blu-ray load time is 2 seconds faster than the S350's. When the S360's Quick Start feature is enabled, it reduces the time the player needs to start up and eject its disc tray from 23 seconds to 7 seconds. The S360 is below average at quickly scrolling through long menus, however: It took 22 seconds, whereas the LG BD370 needed only 15 seconds.

The S360 is better at upconverting standard-definition DVDs than any other Blu-ray player I've tested. The challenging HQV Benchmark DVD showed that the S360 could minimize jagged-edge artifacts better than the Panasonic DMP-BD60. And the S360 nailed all of the benchmark's film cadence tests that check for preservation of detail when dealing with some of the more common frame rates used video production—including the rate of 24 frames per second (fps) in which most movies and prime-time TV shows are captured.

Most Blu-ray movies are stored in the 1080p24 format (1080p resolution, 24 fps), and the BDP-S360 can output this video format to a compatible display via HDMI. But unlike the Panasonic DMP-BD60, the S360 upconverts DVD movies not to 1080p24 but to the more commonly supported 1080p60 format that can introduce judder, which is noticeable in slow panning shots.

On my tests, the S360 displayed exceptionally detailed 1080p Blu-ray video, but it was slightly less capable with 1080i, the format commonly used for bonus material and some animated titles. The 1080i HD HQV Benchmark's video resolution test revealed some flicker that could result in a minor loss of detail; this has been a consistent issue with all Sony BD players that I've tested, including the PlayStation 3. (full Story)

Netbook vs Laptop Performance

It's safe to say that netbooks are here to stay, and they could even come to dominate the laptop landscape in a couple of years. Since their humble beginnings as cheap laptops that could be used to surf the Web, compose e-mails, do light office tasks, and play music or videos but not much more, they are evolving into more substantial machines. Set against their low price and portability are limitations such as screen and keyboard size, and lack of a built-in optical drive. But perhaps the biggest differentiator between netbooks and other laptops is performance. We know netbooks can easily handle the sort of basic tasks I mention above, but how do they do at more rigorous tasks such as resizing photos, transcoding videos, or ripping an audio CD? And how do they stack up against mainstream laptops?

First, I'll say a few words about netbook limitations other than performance. We know that the small screens (most less than 12 inches), lack of optical drive, and constricted keyboard influence price (and buying decisions), but we'll keep our focus here on performance, which for many users is paramount.

Key to the performance of any PC, netbook or otherwise, are its processing parts. The vast majority of netbooks (including the two we'll focus on here) run on an Intel Atom processor, a small percentage use VIA processors, and a scant few with processors from Texas Instruments and ARM have trickled out. Netbooks typically ship with 1GB of memory, while bigger laptops are standardizing at 3GB and 4GB now. And let's not forget that graphics components and hard drives can influence the performance of a netbook.

Performance-wise, netbooks are configured with very few differentiating features between them. But how do they fare against other laptops that cost a little more, run faster processors, and pile on memory? Is improved performance commensurate with the increase in price? Well, we took two netbooks—the Acer Aspire One (10-inch) and the Dell Inspiron Mini 12, which cost $350 and $500, respectively—and compared them with mainstream laptops that aren't outrageously expensive (ranging from $700 to $1,300) but cost considerably more than your average netbook. —Next: How We Tested >