Enterprise Cloud Vendors

Traditional enterprise vendors all have cloud strategies. IBM was a very early proponent of both virtualization and cloud computing.IBM Smart Business cloud solutions support clouds built behind the enterprise firewall, or the IBM cloud. IBM�s public cloud offering is still new, while its private cloud offerings are, for the cloud, very mature.IBM has partnered with Red Hat, SOASTA, RightScale, and others. HP has partnered with Microsoft; Oracle bought Sun outright and partners with Amazon AWS.Hewlett Packard is primarily selling cloud solutions to the enterprise, and the enterprise is typically hosting the solutions in private clouds. Its SaaS offerings are still specialized and limited. HP�s BSM 9.0. addresses hybrid delivery models and management of the �consumerization of IT,� i.e., people...

Windows Phone METRO DESIGN LANGUAGE

Before getting much further into the ins and outs of Windows Phone, it�s worth taking a step backward and looking at the approach that Microsoft took in designing the user experience. Rather than simply refining what they already had, it was time to make a clean break and come up with a revolutionary design. The outcome of this process was not only a unique mobile interface but also a design language that you can, and should, adopt as part of building your application.As part of going forward, it�s important to look back, even if only for a moment to wave as it disappears into the sunset. In the case of Windows Phone, the legacy of Windows Mobile from Pocket PC 2003 SE, through Windows Mobile 5.0, 6.1.4, and finally 6.5.3. As you can see, each has been an incremental approach with little to...

Windows Phone Screen Resolution

Dealing with differing hardware was just one of the challenges faced by developers working with the Windows Mobile platform. In seeking to be a platform that could be tailored to a wide variety of user scenarios, Windows Mobile 6.5 supported six touch - screen and five non - touch � screen resolutions. As you have already learned, there won �t be support for non - touch screen in Windows Phone, but what � s even more exciting for developers is that with Windows Phone there will only be two different screen resolutions that you need to accommodate.The initial platform will be released with WVGA (480 _ 800) resolution. A second resolution, HVGA (320 _ 480), will follow sometime in the future.Whenever you see a Windows Phone being demonstrated, it is likely that it will be in Portrait mode. In...

Using the Windows 7 Reliability Monitor

As with the Performance Monitor, the Reliability Monitor is a system monitoring tool that is designed to help you diagnose problems and improve the performance of your computer. To start it just click the Start menu, type in view reliability, and hit Enter. The Reliability Monitor is especially geared to helping you solve various types of system failures that can lead to poor performance in all areas. It works by tracking all the software installs, uninstalls, application failures, hardware failures, Windows failures, and general miscellaneous failures to compile a System Stability Chart and System Stability Report.Any of the icons on the System Stability Chart can be selected to move the scope of the System Stability Report to a specific time period. This is very useful because it allows...

I acquired a used PC but don�t have an administrator password. Help!

You can access a password-protected administrator account in a number of ways. One is quick and easy, but works only in XP. If the used PC runs Vista or windows 7, skip the next two paragraphs. The following will work only if the previous owner didn�t know enough to close XP�s backdoor entrance to administrator control.First, boot into Safe mode: Start your PC, and press before the windows logo appears. In the resulting boot menu, select Safe Mode. The log-on screen will probably show a user you�ve never seen before, administrator, that does not have a password. This lets you enter windows as an administrator-level user, and you can use Control Panel�s user accounts applet to change the password.If you�re using Vista or windows 7, you can remove the administrator password with ubuntu linux....

Fix an XP System That Won�t Recognize Flash Drives

Reader THOMAS IS having a problem with his six year old Windows XP Professional system: When he plugs in a flash drive, Windows doesn�t recognize it. Before I reveal the solution to this vexing problem, Tomas, note: You didn�t give me nearly enough information in your initial e mail message. infact, it took two follow up messages for me to get all the details I needed to find a fix. So please, everyone, revisit my post on how to ask for tech help (see find.pcworld.com/71061), and remember that you�ll greatly increase your chances of a response by following its simple guidelines. As it happens, Microsoft itself has a fix for the problem of unrecognized USB flash drives (and other such devices), which, it says, is most likely the result of �corrupted or incorrect keys in the registry.� Just...

Windows Phone Chassis Design

So far you know that hardware manufacturers can optionally include a keyboard, but what else can they modify? In the past this was quite an open - ended discussion as manufacturers could build a device to meet a certain price point. For example, for high - end devices, they could include GPS, an accelerometer, and a high - resolution camera; a low - end device may only have a T9 keypad and no camera at all. Even the number and layout of physical hardware buttons could change between devices. Of course, all these options come at a cost, and the first place this took hold was with developers. When building applications, developers were seldom able to rely on a particular hardware feature being present. Instead, you would typically either query an API to determine if hardware existed, or simply...

Windows Phone MINIMUM SPECIFICATIONS

Traditionally, Windows Mobile has had the stigma attached to it that it is slow and unreliable. This had little to do with the underlying operating system, but rather the other stakeholders involved in getting a device into market. Manufacturers, telecommunication companies, application developers, and other third parties all contribute to what comes prepackaged on a device. Each one of these parties builds or adds features that they think will benefit the user. Unfortunately, quite often these features either degrade the overall experience � for example, hogging precious device resources � or don � t play well with other aspects of the phone. This has led to an overall negative impression of the Windows Mobile platform as a whole.Microsoft took the opportunity with Windows Phone to restructure...

Clearing Windows 7 the Last User Logon

Every time you boot up your PC, all computer accounts and users who have logged on to it display on the logon screen. This can be a big security risk because it shows the usernames of all accounts that someone can try to use to break into the computer. In addition, the logon screen can become cluttered with many user accounts. Therefore, it might be a good idea to enable the Do not display last user name policy. In previous versions of Windows that used the classic logon screen, this policy would just clear the User name text box so that an attacker would have no clue about the last account used to log on. With the removal of the classic logon screen in 7, this policy behaves slightly differently by removing the Account list on the logon screen and turning on basic User name and Password boxes.Using...

Understanding User Account Control in Windows 7

In a homegroup or workgroup, a computer running Windows 7 has only local machine accounts. In a domain, a computer running Windows 7 has both local machine accounts and domain accounts. Windows 7 has two primary types of local user accounts:� Standard Standard user accounts can use most software and can change system settings that do not affect other users or the security of the computer.� administrator Administrator user accounts have complete access to the computer and can make any changes that are needed.Windows 7 includes User Account Control as a way to enhance computer security by ensuring true separation of standard user and administrator user accounts. Because of the User Account Control feature in Windows 7, all applications run using either standard user or administrator user privileges....