Go to Gmail’s website and go to Settings on the top right. Go to Forwarding and POP/IMAP page and make sure IMAP is enabled.

Now open your brand new installation of Outlook 2010. It will start up a wizard to set up your email address. Click the option to Manually configure and click Next.

Click Internet Email and click Next.

In this window put in your name and email address. This is the name that others will see who you send emails to. Set the incoming server to imap.gmail.com and the outgoing server to smtp.gmail.com. Then click More Settings.

You can rename the mail account here which by default is your email address. I name it something more pleasing like “Gmail”. Then go to Advanced tab.

Set the incoming server to 993 and encryption to SSL. The outgoing server should be 587 and encryption should be TLS.

Go to Outgoing Server tab and check the box for outgoing server requires authentication.

Once you click OK it will bring you back to the “Add New Account” screen where you should click Test Account Settings which tells you if it is set correctly or not. When you get a success screen then you are good to go. Click OK and enjoy your newly set up Gmail in Outlook.

In Windows7 go to Start > Control Panel and look for Mail. If you cannot find it type “mail” in the search box on the top right. Then click Mail.

This will bring up the Mail Setup dialog box with Show Profiles section that we are interested in.

In most cases you will just have one mail profile. If you delete this profile then all your Outlook settings will be reset to default. To delete click Remove and then press OK.

Now that Windows7 is officially out and available to everyone, most people would want to take advantage of the shiny new operating sysem from Microsoft. But how do you check if your mahcine meets the requirements for Windows7? You can go by the official Microsoft requirements or use the Upgrade Advisor. Microsoft has outlined very general system requirements of a PC with 1GHz processor and 1GB RAM for 32-bit version. Windows7 Upgrade Advisor gives a much more customized report specific to your computer and network environment.

Windows7 Upgrade Advisor is a simple 8Mb applicaiton which can be downloaded and run instantly. One thing to note is that the Advisor recommends to connect other USB and external devices such as phones before running it. This way you can find out all at once if all of the attached devices are supported by Windows7.

When the Advisor finishes running a report is generated showing incompatibilities and and issues that may arise either from hardware or software components that are being used. The Advisor provides a 32-bit and 64-bit version of the report if your computer is capable of support both types of operating systems.

To disable any program from automatically starting up, go to Start – Control Panel.

In the Control Panel look for Change Startup Programs under Programs. Click on change startup programs.

This will load up Windows Defender – Software Explorer. The category should be Startup Programs. This will give you a list of all the programs that load when your computer powers on.

In the Windows Defender window, the right column gives you details what any program is about. Select any program on the left to look for details on the right. If there are any programs that you don’t need to startup then simply disable it. You will see a confirmation screen (seen below). Click Yes to continue and that particular will no longer load with your computer.

Once in the System and Maintenance window scroll to the bottom of the window. Look for Create and format hard disk partitions located in Administrative Tools section.

This will load the Disk Management window. Here all the disk volumes on the computer will be listed along with their size, type and other info. Highlight the volume which you want to split and right click. Notice the Shrink Volume link.

Clicking on the Shrink Volume link will load the utility where you can specify the disk space in Mb that you want to carve out from the volume. The utility will also show a running tally of what the total size is and the disk size before and after the “shrink”. Screenshot is below. Once you click OK the resizing wizard takes care of the rest and you will have unallocated disk space on your computer. You can use it as a backup volume or installing a new operating system or anything else that you want to do with a brand new disk drive.

Format New Disk

Follow these steps to format new harddisk connected to the computer running Windows.

• Power on the harddisk and connect the USB or Firewire cable to the computer port. Wait for the short beep sound that Windows uses to notify that new device has been connected.
• Go to Start ? Run and type in compmgmt.msc and press enter.



• In the Computer Management window on the left Tab click on Disk Management This shows you the existing disks on the system or connected to the system. Your new unformatted disk should appear as an empty expanse at the bottom of the right side of the window.



• Right click on the new disk and click Format



• In the subsequent Wizard Windows select NTFS Quick to easily format the new harddisk and enjoy your newly expanded disk space on your computer.

Experience With Expression Web

I started off with Expression Web. Downloading the beta was quick and easy but .NET version 3.5 framework took much longer to install than the program itself even requiring a reboot. After I got Expression Web it was simple to choose a website template. The trouble started soon after when I started using the template. Expression Web was not intuitive at all. The interface is cluttered with buttons and options that most users do not need and simple preferences are packed away behind layers of sub-menus and tabs. The click and drag simplicity of FrontPage is nowhere to be seen with Expression Web.

Evolution In Software Design

Expression Web is the next logical level of product development from MS FrontPage. It is supposed to be evolutionary and not revolutionary. But I experienced quite the opposite. As an early adopter, beta tester and alpha of hundreds of products (Microsoft included) I am used to bloated software with convoluted designs. For example I have been using the predecessor of Vista called Longhorn since its 4000 release builds. But Expression Web is in a league of its own. I sure hope MS turns around and incorporates the FrontPage goodies in Expression Web.

Microsoft’s Virtualization Edge

All is not lost for Microsoft. They are taking advantage of the Windows Server market share and capitalizing on their widespread use. The Hyper-V virtualization engine is being embedded in Windows Server 2008. This will give MS a head start with all customers who upgrade to the Server 2008 line. For obvious licensing reasons MS gives customers the choice – ”Windows Server 2008 will be able to be licensed without Hyper-V”.

Download Hyper-V With Windows Server 2008

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition is already equipped with Hyper-V virtualization engine and ready for download. You can download this release and take it for a spin. MS describes the current release as ”The Release Candidate 0 (RC0) update to the Hyper-V role provides improvements to security, stability, performance, user experience, forward compatibility of configurations, and the programming model”. Detailed install procedures and best practices are available from Microsoft help pages.

Hyper-V Features

Microsoft is touting the Hyper-V virtualization product as the best ever made. But comparing it with many of the options Microsoft only has a few features which makes Hyper-V unique.

Symmetric Multiprocessors (SMP) Support: Ability to support up to four multiple processors in a virtual machine environment enables you to take full advantage of multi-threaded applications in a virtual machine.

Network Load Balancing: Hyper-V includes new virtual switch capabilities. This means virtual machines can be easily configured to run with Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB) Service to balance load across virtual machines on different servers.

Quick Migration: Hyper-V enables you to rapidly migrate a running virtual machine from one physical host system to another with minimal downtime, leveraging familiar high-availability capabilities of Windows Server and System Center management tools.

Microsoft has seen many ups and downs and has survived every hurdle thrown at it. It has managed to fight long legal battles against US anti-trust agencies and their European counterparts. But the software powerhouse seems to be losing its edge when it comes to the internet. Monstrous corporations have limited success on the web which is mainly dominated by small startups which are eventually bought out by other companies. But there are no small ideas at Microsoft. If they decide to power in to the online business realm, Yahoo may be their best hope. This may be one of the reasons why it makes sense for Microsoft to acquire Yahoo! Too bad Yahoo! has turned down the initial offer. Yahoo! may be playing hard to get but will Microsoft take the bait and increase their offer? Too soon to tell. Steve Ballmer and his posse have a tough choice on their hands.