Panoramic Calc Pro for Windows XP/Vista/7

Panoramic Software has finally brought Calc Pro to desktop PCs. It has been carefully developed to work on desktop PCs, laptops, net books and tablets.

Along with all of the features of the Windows Mobile version:

• Standard calculator


• Scientific


• Financial with 10 worksheets


• 130+ daily updated currency conversions


• Thousands of Unit conversions


• Thousands of scientific constants


• Graphing


• Multiple skins


• Highly configurable calculator settings including RPN


• Much more

The Windows version also allows for 4 size selections which allows it to work great on 1080p displays and tiny net book displays as small as 640x480.

For more information, purchasing or a free trial go here:

http://www.panoramicsoft.com/desktop/calcpro/CalcproDesktop.php

How to end a task in Vista without the Task Mananger

I had something happen today that I've never seen on any version of Windows that I can remember.

The Task Manager crashed. More specifically - it continued to run but was completely unresponsive. Now to be fair this sort of thing has happened in the past - however - it would always indicate a major failure and require a reboot. Strangely the rest of my system was happy and responsive so I didn't see any need to reboot.

This of course was a new challenge - how to kill the Task Manager without using the Task Manager. Well it turns out its quite simple and required very little effort.

I opened a command prompt, and typed in "help". It returned a list of commands and I spotted the two I needed quite quickly - TASKLIST & TASKKILL.

Tasklist gave a list of running tasks as you would expect and TaskKill allowed me to end a task.

To kill the Task Manager the command is "Taskkill /im taskmgr.exe"

I think the bigger lesson in this post is the command line help is remarkably useful (as least it is under Windows Vista). I haven't tested this under other flavors of Windows so your results may vary.

Or maybe the lesson is the Task Manager is less stable in Windows Vista compared to previous versions.

Microsoft Action Pack - great way for small businesses to save money

I recently updated my subscription to Microsoft Action Pack and I thought now would be the perfect time to tell others a bit about it.

The quick story is - Microsoft will license you thousands of dollars of software for your company's internal use for a few hundred dollars a year.

The intial price to start is slightly higher than the subscription fee - when we signed up it was $350 US or $450 Canadian with an update fee of $300 a year.

What you get for your money is 10 licenses of Microsoft's latest OS - in the case Vista Professional. You also get 10 licenses of Microsoft Office. Beyond that you get access to almost every Microsoft application you can think of (excluding development tools).

Microsoft will also send you updates every month or two as new products become avaliable.

If you consider the cost of a single license of Vista Professional and a single copy of Office Professional 2007 you quickly realize this a great deal.

What's the catch? Well - technically you're supposed to renew your subscription every year or stop using the software. However we did let ours laps for about 12 months and everything continued to work correctly.

You also are NOT allowed to sell or distribute the software. Its for internal use only.

And you must sign up to be Microsoft Partner - however this is takes no more than 10 minutes.

We originally signed up to simply get Windows XP and Office, but quickly realized that having extra software like Microsoft's Small Business Server and the web development tools would also be very useful. And the SMB costs more than a single year of the Action Pack Subscription.

Take a look and take advantage if you're searching for a cost effective way to use Microsoft's software. You no longer have an excuse for using "borrowed" copies in your office or home office.

http://partner.microsoft.com/ or google "Microsoft Action Pack"

Scanning in Windows Vista

It really seems like nothing is quite as easy as it used to be with Windows XP.

Here's another quick tip for Windows Vista users trying to scan.


Previously, pressing the Scan button on your scanner was all it would take to prompt your system (and scanner) to scan an image and send it to your favorite image editing application.

Now (at least with HP scanners it seems), you need to initiate the scan from your computer and NOT the scanner. If your software doesn't have an option to start a scan, you'll want to use the Windows Photo Gallery.

Simply launch "Windows Photo Gallery" from your start menu, open the File menu and select "Import From Scanner or Camera".

From here you'll have the option to select your scanner and go through the usual and familar options.

Aren't things supposed to get easier with Vista? However I don't know if this is an issue with my HP scanner or Windows Vista.

The Elusive Mail applet in Vista 64

I just wanted to make a quick post for anyone else who has had a tough time trying to find the "Mail" Control Panel applet on Vista 64. (and I assume this will also apply to other 64 bit Microsoft OSs).

I was setting up access to an exchange server yesterday for Outlook 2007. As you may already know, this needs to be done while Outlook is fully closed and should be set up by using the Mail applet in the Control Panel.

On Vista 64 bit Edition, this icon is no longer present in the Control Panel. Because this applet is a 32 bit applet instead of 64 - it gets hidden away with other 32 applets.

To find the Mail item - you simply need to click on the icon labelled "View 32-bit Control Panel Items" in the Control Panel. If you don't see this entry, you'll need to change the view in the Control Panel to "Classic View". This can be done by clicking the appropriately named link in the top left of the Window.

How to surpress the constant prompts in Vista

If you're new to Vista and you're at least somewhat tech savvy, you're probably wondering why Vista asks you to confirm just about everything you're doing.

This is because of the new UAC - or User Account Control. Honestly for most people its probably a great idea, for myself, it simply provokes brief periods of rage.

Fortunately there's an easy fix.

Simply open the Control Panel, go to User Accounts, and click "Turn User Account Control on or off". You'll know if its on if Vista makes you confirm this action as well.


Thanks to LifeHacker.com for the info

http://lifehacker.com/software/vista/windows-vista-tip--disable-annoying-need-your-permission-to-continue-prompts-230866.php

Follow up to Windows Mobile Development on Vista

In a recent post I mentioned my troubles with syncing the windows mobile emulators (ie cradling) with the Sync Center on Windows Vista.


As it turns out it was quite an easy fix (and to be fair - something I should know by now). It appears that syncing over DMA isn't enabled by default which is what's required to "cradle" the Visual Studio 2005 WM Emulators.


The fix is to simply open the Windows Mobile Device Center, open the Connection Settings (the link will appear under "Mobile Device Settings"), select the check box beside "Allow connections to one of the following:" and finally change the drop down selection to DMA.


That's all it took for me.


Good luck and happy developing