Adobe Air: Sure you can export your RSS feeds from Google Reader and import the feed file into desktop RSS reader for offline browsing. Scoop takes offline browsing a step further by allowing you to not only read your feeds but have them remain synced to your Google Reader account. Removing and tagging items in Scoop modifies the feeds in your Reader account as well. The interface is easy to use and includes most of the commonly used keyboard shortcuts from Google Reader. On the downside images are not currently downloaded for offline browsing, so if you've synced and now no longer have internet access you're out of luck until you're jacked back in. Scoop can be used independently of Google Reader, with manually added feeds, but it's Google integration is where it shines. For an alternate method of accessing your Google Reader feeds offline, check out Google Gears and RSS Bandit. Scoop is freeware, cross platform, and requires Adobe Air to run.

via lifehacker

via softpedia

“Energy efficiency is improved through reduced background activity and new support for the trigger starting of system services. Windows 7 also offers improvements in the Windows kernel that enable applications and services to scale efficiently between platforms. Performance of many features and APIs is improved in Windows 7 versus Windows Vista. For example, driver performance on servers is optimized by new user-mode and kernel-mode topology APIs. Graphics rendering is considerably smoother and faster. Accessibility performance is also significantly faster than before,” Microsoft explained.
According to the Redmond company, the power management technologies of the next iteration of the Windows client have been kicked up a notch. At the same time, there is only so much that Microsoft can do in the absence of support from software developers building solutions designed to run on top of the operating system. The software giant revealed that ultimately the responsibility of ensuring that Windows 7 and the underlying hardware meet their respective energy-efficiency potential lies with software developers. In this context, Microsoft pointed out that developers had the necessary infrastructure and tools in the client to tone down as much as possible the energy impact of their applications.
“Windows 7 greatly reduces the number of activities that the operating system performs that prevent use of power-saving modes. It also supports the trigger-starting of system services to enable processors to become idle more often and stay idle longer, which decreases power consumption. In addition, Windows 7 takes advantage of the latest energy-efficient hardware, including network adapters, storage devices, and graphics cards,” the company added.
Among the enhancements coming with Windows 7 are trigger-start capabilities. With a great impact on reducing startup times, trigger-start capabilities ensure that services needn't start automatically as the computer will boot. In this regard, Microsoft has made it possible for developers to start a service on a certain trigger. Windows 7 is optimized with a range of preconfigured services which are just waiting for developers to take advantage of them. This is done via the Windows 7 Service Control Manager.
“Common trigger events for services include: Device-class interface arrival: Start a service only when a certain type of device is present or attached on the system; Domain join: Start a service only if the system is joined to a Windows domain; Group policy change: Start a service automatically when group policies are refreshed on the system; and IP address arrival: Start a service only when the system is connected to the network,” the company stated.

source :softpedia.com

Well this was a long “I told you so” in the making. Reader “rm20010” recently commented on a blog post from mine from two years ago, and as curious as I was I decided to check out how in any way it could be relevant. It turns out to be quite interesting indeed.

In December 06 I had found this Microsoft patent from January 2005 by the old Longhorn/Vista designers (Don Lindsay & Hillel Cooperman). Today a variation of what that patent had described (as a way of managing windows) is what we has been realized in the “Aero Peek” feature of Windows 7.

If nothing else, this is a pretty good example of just how long it takes an idea from incubation to reach market and maybe an indication of just how many Longhorn-era innovations (and innovators) were ahead of their time.

Vista was a resource hog, many called it the “pig with lipstick”.. it needed too much hard disk space, too much ram and too much CPU power just for itself, leaving very little resources for the applications.

Well Microsoft at last got the message and they are trying to slim down windows7.

Let me note that this will be the FIRST TIME EVER, that a NEW Microsoft OS will need LESS hard disk space and resources than its Predecessor (in this case vista)!.

The reasons are many.. the sluggish economy, that doesn't permit people to buy new computers often, the arrival of low budget laptops and other portable devices that have smaller CPU’s and ram than desktop systems, and the fact that the old hard disks are going to fade out slowly and the new solid state SSD disks (with no moving parts) will arrive. These new disks are 10 –20 times faster than the hard disks with platters that we all use, but they still have small capacity.

Read the following articles to gain a better understanding of why Microsoft is trying to slim down windows7. I think it is for the best.. Vista was JUST TOO BIG!

1)

 http://apcmag.com/windows_7_gets_ssdfriendly.htm
Another SSD-centric focus for Microsoft is ensuring that Windows 7 can fit
on the smaller solid state drives of netbooks. While most of today's
SSD-equipped netbooks ship with a maximum 8GB drive, this is expected to
double within the coming year. And it'll need to, because Windows 7 will lay
claim to almost half of that space.
At last week's WinHEC confab, Microsoft senior lead program manager Leon
Braginski said that the OS and auxiliary files - ranging from restore files,
temp and system log points and disk space reserved for hibernation - will
require only 8GB, leaving the remainder free for applications and user data.
"The entire install of Windows 7 will be smaller than Vista," Braginski
said, making 16GB "enough for a good Windows 7 experience."

2)

http://www.betanews.com/article/Windows_7_will_be_lean_faster_and_even_embedded/1225234917
Microsoft still uses Windows XP for its embedded platform, despite the
operating system being 7 years old. The company hasn't been able to slim
down Windows Vista enough to make it workable in embedded environments.
There is an "Embedded Enterprise" version of Vista, but it has the same
hardware requirements as the full OS and simply offers a customizable
interface.
Sinofsky said that Microsoft has done a lot of work to fix the slowdowns and
bulk introduced in Windows Vista. From boot times, to menu response, Windows
7 promises to be leaner and faster than its predecessor.

The competition, now in its second year, involves Max putting together a killer PC system (this year a Media Center) with components suggested (and sometimes disputed) by the community. The selfless guy then gives the finished system to one lucky random winner from the pool of users who contributed at least a comment. Not bad since all you do is suggest the most expensive components you can find. Microsoft’s paying right?

So far they’ve picked a case, CPU and motherboard. Currently discussing memory.

Students from any country can participate. Head over to the Channel8 site for more details.

We see a lot of hard disks in the market today that come in large sizes. We see 80 gigabyte hard drives up to 160 gigabyte. That is quite a large storage capacity if you compare it to the old ones we have some years back and one thing you should be aware of is that the larger the storage, the risky it is as far as perhaps losing data once the hard disk crashes or breaks down.

The best way to go about it is to partition the hard drives into smaller parts. For example, you can partition an 80 gigabyte hard disk into 2 40 gigabytes or even 4 20 gigabyte drives. As you can see, even in smaller partitions, they are still big and normally for most operating systems like Windows Vista or Windows XP, the most you would need would be about 4 gigabyte at the most.

When it comes to installing software, you can install it on the other drive letters assigned. For example, you can install MS Office in drive D or an anti-virus software in drive E. This helps ensure that you are balancing the applications you are installing which in the end can save you the trouble of losing space.

For documents, you don’t have to always follow the usual My Documents on the C drive. You can configure it in a way that it is saved on the other drives. Or if you are lazy to configure, the beauty of partitioning is that you can easily transfer in between drives so that if crashes occur you can retrieve the files and transfer them via DOS or Windows.

Partitioning can be done on the setup menu during your first installation of Windows. Decide and then assign what partition size you want and then install from there.

For the best chances of winning, make sure you visit each of the fifty blogs during their 7-day contest period. To make it easy for you to follow along, here are dates of all the blogs in fancy Google Calendar form and downloadable ICS format.

The competition on this site starts on Tuesday, December 2nd.