Windows 10 Day 3: Using Windows 10 with a touchscreen

The Windows 10 hype isn't that strong today, while there are still quite a number of articles about it being good or bad, the initial hype about the launch is a bit calmer now. While most of us in the tech community has upgraded to Windows 10, some of the not-so tech savvy users have not claimed their upgrade and that should take place during the weekends as the process does take a hit on productive activities. Just remember that if you have not received the notification for your Windows 10 upgrade, you can try this trick to skip the line and get it now. 

Speaking of upgrading to Windows 10, Microsoft has announced today through their official blog that Windows 10 is now on 14 million computers worldwide. That equates to 162 upgrades every second, pretty impressive number. Additionally, Microsoft also highlighted the moments shared by Windows 10 fans on launch day through the #UpgradeYourWorld hashtag. 

Windows 10 Day 2: Configuring the operating system - Everything worked as is and I even managed to print a file on my printer, No errors, the drivers were supported on Windows 10. Continue reading. 

Alright, on to today's update which is all about the Surface Pro 3. Like I mentioned in Day 1, previously I was only using Windows 10 on an old laptop which is nothing compared to all the new hardware innovations on laptops today. Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 laptop hybrid is one of them as it comes with a high resolution 12" multi touch display. While Microsoft isn't directly marketing Windows 10 as an operating system made for touch devices like they did with Windows 8, the operating system itself has quite a bit of tricks up it's sleeve for laptops with touch displays. 

Windows 10 Day 2: Configuring the operating system

This is day 2 of running Windows 10 on my main computer and while yesterday was all about upgrading to Windows 10 itself as well as talk about some of the shortcomings after updating. Today's experience is better compared to yesterday but there are still some bug here and the with Windows 10. It is not exactly a perfect experience like it was with Windows 8.1 but that what you get for being an early adopter.

Windows 10 Day 1: The actual upgrade - Using Windows 10 on a big monitor is a relatively new experience for me. On the taskbar I can now fit more than 20 applications without splitting into a separate page. Continue reading.

It was a normal day for me and as usual, I was using the computer all day long and for the most part I was doing the usual things like looking through my Twitter stream, reading new articles, watching videos, and also doing a little social blogging on our social media sites. My workflow remained the same but I did started to use some Windows Store apps like Wunderlist and the Mail app.

But that's not all, I was also upgrading the Surface Pro 3 to Windows 10. Surprisingly, I actually have quite a bit to talk about the whole upgrade and initial setup process for the Surface Pro 3.

Windows 10 Day 1: The actual upgrade

After 9 months of trying out everything good and bad about Windows 10 through the Insider program, today (July 29), I will officially start using Windows 10 on my main computer. Previously, I was only using Windows 10 on a occasional basis which mostly happens when there is a brand new feature or there was something I needed to clarify. That Windows 10 experience was based on an old Dell laptop which initially ran Windows Vista and was powered by a Core 2 Duo processor.

Windows 10 Facts - Horizontal scrolling is dead on Windows 10, OneDrive is now a music streaming service and more. Continue reading

Technically speaking, that didn't affect my review of Windows 10, I was evaluating the software experience and not the hardware performance. But nonetheless, Windows 10 ran quite solidly on my old laptop. With that out of the way, now I have the opportunity to actually put Windows 10 through it's paces with real world tasks and for the next week or so, maybe more, depending on my initial findings I will be blogging about my experience of using Windows 10 as my daily driver.

Windows 10 review

Familiar is the name of the game

Windows 10 is designed to be familiar and has been built with what users want — Microsoft has reiterated that they want to get Windows users to genuinely love the product that they are using rather than loving it because it's their only choice. That is a tall order to ask from all 1.5 billion Windows users out there but as ambitious as it sounds, Microsoft might have just struck the right cord with Windows 10.

"  We aspire to move people from needing Windows to choosing Windows to loving Windows."  Satya Nadella

The highlight feature on Windows 10 is the return of the Start Menu which was absent in Windows 8 but that's not the only thing to focus in this new version of Windows. From the minute you boot up into Windows 10, you can start marveling at the changes made. Sure, Microsoft did re-introduce back the Start Menu but through the taskbar, you can start to notice the changes made like the new search bar right next to the Start button and also several new icons on the task bar like the Task View button.

But, has Microsoft broken away from the poor design choices they made with Windows 8 and after nearly a year of public developmental builds through the Windows Insider program, is Microsoft giving what users what they need in Windows 10? The short answer is yes, but it depends.

Remembering the days of the iPod, a lost world

Apple Music is taking over the iPod

Late to the party by two generations but the new lineup of iPods from Apple are finally here and like most products made by the guys over at Cupertino, this new refresh is simple and straight to the point. The three new 2015 iPod models take up the designs from their predecessors and besides some internal swaps, the exterior look and feel of these new iPods are identical to that of the models Apple released back in 2012.

Both the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle merely gained three new color options (gold, pink and blue) and that's about it. The iPod Touch in the other hand also comes in the three new color options but Apple also took the time to retro fit the new iOS device with a new logic board which includes the iPhone 6's A8 processor and M8 motion coprocessor. It's also worth noting that it still has a 4" Retina display and a new 8MP iSight camera.

Think of the new 2015 iPod Touch as a supercharged iPhone 5 without cellular connectivity, yeah Apple's trademark TouchID home button is not on the new iPod Touch. So, the question now is; should you invest your money on Apple's new iPods.

Saying goodbye to Windows 8 and all it's mistakes

Everyone is heading over to Windows 10

Ah, it's that time of the decade again, a new version of Windows is being released and this time around, quite a huge number of people will be upgrading to the latest version of Windows. This is because Microsoft is for the first time providing a free upgrade path for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 systems to get Windows 10 at no extra charges. Provided that you previously had a genuine copy of Windows. So, with the official arrival of Windows 10, it's time to bid farewell to Windows 8/8.1.

With a mere 13% market share worldwide, Windows 8 is definitely not Microsoft's most successful version but it's not the worst too. The numbers don't lie and not many have taken their time to upgrade to Windows 8 but if you've bought a new computer in the past few years, it would most likely come pre-loaded with it.

" Windows 7 still holds 60% of the market

Technically speaking, Windows users usually don't upgrade to the latest and greatest version because it seems that the core of idea Windows hasn't technically changed (much) moving forward. Just look at the market share Windows XP had, only in recent years that both Windows 7 and Windows 8 overtook the market share of the 13 year old operating system.

Bing desktop review, more than just a search engine

Why is there a fish on my desktop

When it comes to the stock desktop on Windows, it's usually just filled with icons depicting folders, app shortcut and files. Sure you could install a custom theme engine to get something artistic up on your desktop or you could also take advantage of the widgets which are only available in Windows 7 and Windows Vista. But moving forward to newer releases of Windows like Windows 8 and Windows 10, the desktop has seemingly become static already and all the rotating information is present only in the start menu/screen.

This should be something fairly new for everyone out there, you're probably somewhat familiar to the search engine called Bing by Microsoft but there's actually a desktop application which enables you to search directly through the desktop.

Personally, I am not so sure when did I even discover this application but for the past few years, it has been seemingly there on my desktop. Just to reiterate things, Bing desktop is an official program from Microsoft which supports systems running Windows XP and above. Microsoft doesn't actually pre-install this application onto Windows PCs nor do they even promote the program whatsoever.

Perfecting that pixel

A subtle change

I have to say, starting this blog has brought me to a lot of places and although i'm actually not used to expressing myself in person but this whole experience in the past three years have taught me a lot about expressing my feelings on the internet that is. My blog(s) might not be the most popular tech related one out there nor does it exceptionally stand out from the crowd but i've learnt not to mind too much about what others think about my work. 

Sharing what i know and think about has been my goal since day one and i'm not going to reiterate the whole story of how this blog came up, you can read it up at the 'about us' page through the tabs on top. Through writing these articles, i am practically brushing up on my grammar skills and tendency to expand the story based on the bullet point facts. 

Nothing that i've said or i'm about to say has to do with technology but it impacts the blog in the coming weeks and months ahead. As i said, when i first started this blog i just knew that i was going to share my knowledge of technology on the internet, i didn't know much about proper blogging ethics like paragraphing my articles and including imagery to express the content (true fact: you can look back at my articles from 2012). But in time, after reading material from other sites, the articles that i've pushed out are more refined now.

Freescale Xtrinsic Sensor Board unboxing and overview

Sensors on a PCB

Just a couple months back, I decided to get the Raspberry Pi 2 and since then I've invested quite some time to learn all about electronics and how code translates into physical activity. By no means am I an expert in either programming nor electronics but I've got to start somewhere. Up until today, I have been trying out simple electronic parts like LEDs, buzzers and some standalone sensors.

Today, I'll be doing a short unboxing and a very shallow overview of Freescale's Xtrinsic Sense Board which supports both the Raspberry Pi and also Freescale's KL25Z Kinetis board. The reason why I chose this board opposed to other popular HATs (Hardware Attached on Top) or Shields (add on boards that interface through the Pi's GPIO pins) is because there is a decent amount of documentation available and not much coverage about it on the internet.

• Setting up the Raspberry Pi 2 for the first time
• There is now an official Raspberry Pi 2 case that costs only $8
• The easy way to install Windows 10 IoT Core Insider Preview on your Raspberry Pi 2

That's a good thing because I won't be relying solely on online tutorials by others to explore the board's capabilities, in simple words, that'll be more hard days of exploring how to program the board.