WLMM is something which is a separate download in the Windows Live suite of applications. It does not come bundled with Windows 7 but can be added in easily.

The last time I tried this software it was in beta form. Admittedly, I hated it. But now the software is finished so I gave it a go. It is far better than it was in beta and a truly completed product.

There is a video below this showing a basic tutorial of how to get simple thing done in WLMM, here’s a few questions answered up front.

Is it the same as the older Windows Movie Maker?

No. The way in which is operates is completely different. It has the ribbon interface seen in the updated versions of the Office suite, Paint and Windows Live Mail. This is an attempt by Microsoft to make everything look similar no matter what you’re using.

Is it better than the older Windows Movie Maker?

Yes. It supports the native import of more formats (like MOV, MP4 and M4A for example), has effects that are much more streamlined and useful and also has other useful bits, such as direct-to-DVD, direct-to-YouTube and so on.

Is there a learning curve with WLMM?

Yes. You will not take to it like a fish to water. But as stated in the video, once you start using it you’ll realize the way in which it works does make sense, and over time you will be able to edit videos faster and more efficiently. The only people who would purposely stay with the old Windows Movie Maker are robbing themselves of a truly good and useful video editor.

See video below for more details.

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Windows Live Movie Maker Tutorial (Video)

For example, Hotmail and AIM/AOL Mail only allow for 16-character passwords. If you set a password generator profile to only generate passwords of that size, any new password you create will always work.

See video below for details. Creating passwords in this fashion makes them a whole lot easier to manage.

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Using KeePass Password Generator Profiles

In the “too much” department, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice and Lotus Symphony come to mind. These are all full suites.

In the “not enough” department there is Google Docs, Dark Room, WriteRoom, AbiWord and a few others.

Then there’s Jarte. This word processor utilizes the existing WordPad engine in Windows, yet adds a whole bunch of stuff that makes this a truly good program to write things in.

Jarte to most people will look ugly and the interface may throw you off. However once you start actually using it, you’ll find that the way things are laid out are done in a way that makes sense. For example, Jarte has tabs. Tabs? Yes! And they work great. Jarte makes it super-easy to insert special characters like ä or é. Jarte will open both DOC and DOCX (the newer MS Office 2007 format). Jarte will export HTML and/or PDF. This software has it where it counts.

Best of all, Jarte is super-light. The installation file is a tiny 5MB, launches faster than your Word or OpenOffice ever will, and has a feature set which falls into the “just right” department.

Jarte is not a replacement for MS Word or OO Writer. Not by a long shot. But heck, a 5MB feature-rich word processor that will run local or USB stick and uses an existing engine for lightning-fast operation? That’s tough to beat.

Jarte will work on versions of Windows from 95 all the way to 7. How’s that for compatibility?

See video below for details and visit www.jarte.com to download and try it for yourself.

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Jarte, The Ultimate Lightweight Word Processor? [Video]

The best use of Caret Browsing is to precisely select blocks of text. When you use your mouse to highlight text, often it will occur that the browser selects something you didn’t want to. With Caret Browsing, the browser enables a cursor that you can move with your keyboard and get right to where you want to be, highlight, select, copy and then paste into your preferred text or document editor.

See video for details below.

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How To Use Caret Browsing

For example the EeePC 1000HE does have a matte LCD display while the mini 10v has a glossy. The trackpad on the 1000HE is “taller” with actual mouse buttons while the 10v has the buttons built into the trackpad near the bottom. The 10v has more of a standardized keyboard while the 1000HE is more chiclet style (and yes that is the way it’s spelled).

Earlier in the week I stopped by with my 10v and put it side-by-side to the 1000HE. It’s not a detailed review by any means, but it gives you an idea of the small differences between makes and models. See video below for details.

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Asus EeePC 1000HE And Dell Mini 10v Netbooks

As I had been saying many times since 2009 started, my plan was to get a netbook as my next laptop. So I bought a refurbished Dell Inspiron Mini 10v.

My overall opinion of the unit is that it’s a decent solid build and is definitely the right size. However the one thing that I absolutely must point out is that without a 6 cell battery it’s not worth owning.

Since it’s a challenge at best to run high-powered, high-graphic apps (like many popular game titles) on one of these things, what you would use it most for is web browsing, documents and communication such as email, instant messengers and so on.

On a netbook, where one finds this most useful is not at home. Whether it’s your local coffee shop or restaurant with free wi-fi, a long flight, long car or bus ride, hotel, etc., that’s where you’re going to use this thing.

Being that’s the case, long battery life is what matters more than anything else on a netbook.

It should be absolutely mandatory that all netbooks come provided with a 6 cell battery as standard. This is not the case for any netbook currently. All of them, whether made by Dell, HP, MSI, Acer or the like all come with a 3 cell. This realistically only gets you 3 hours of battery life, and that serves absolutely no advantage over a standard-sized laptop.

On my 10v, I purposely sought out a refurb with the 6 cell battery. This was the absolute best decision I could have made because I get the most usefulness out of this netbook.

Being there are other reviews of the 10v on the internet already, I’m going to point out here (some of which will be mentioned in the video below) the points most people would be interested in learning, in Q&A format.

Does it have an optical drive?

No. What makes a netbook a netbook usually starts with having no optical drive. If you want one, you can purchase the small external USB kind. Here’s an example.

What’s the resolution?

On the 10v it’s 1024×576. Most apps will run in this resolution with no issue at all. In the browser (any web browser), you can get maximum space by pressing F11 for full screen mode, and press it again to go back to windowed. Try it right now if you like; it works on any computer.

The Dell mini 10 (the one without the v) does offer a 1366 resolution, however I know for a fact that for many people the text would just be way too small.

At the time I write this, Dell has introduced the brand new Inspiron 11z, which has, you guessed it, an 11-inch screen. Does a 1366 resolution look any more readable on that? Depends on your eyes.

1024×576 on a 10-inch screen can be read fine even for those with a “heavy” eyeglass prescription. With 1366 there’s squinting. And it is unknown at this point whether an 11-inch screen would serve any better, readability-wise.

It also should be noted that at full brightness, the 10v’s LCD screen beams, as in so bright it would literally bother you. I never have mine set at full bright. I think the only time you would have to full-bright is when sitting outside with it on a very bright sunny day.

What’s the hard drive size?

There are several sizes, starting with an 8GB SSD, then 16GB SSD, then 120GB 2.5-inch and the 160GB 2.5-inch. There’s also a 64GB SSD somewhere in the mix.

In the new 11v there is a 250GB 2.5-inch SATA drive offering. It’s overkill, but available.

The SATA drives are the purposely-chosen slower 5400rpm because they run cooler.

On my 10v, I have the 160GB. For me this is fine given the fact I don’t have anything that would munch up hard drive space.

Even if you chose to stuff your hard drive full of movies and MP3s, it would still take a while to fill this thing up. But if you gotta-gotta-gotta have the extra space, just buy an external 750GB Western Digital MyPassport (brand new at the time of this writing). Problem solved.

How does the keyboard feel?

On the 10v it feels solid and not toy-like. It is, according to Dell, 92% the size of a traditional laptop keyboard. It’s responsive, easy to type on and doesn’t require any huge learning curve.

What some may have a problem with is where the PgUp/PgDn keys are. They are shared with the arrow keys and accessible via Fn. Page Up would be Fn+Up, Page Down would be Fn+Down.

It also should be noted there are no keys which could act as a number pad via Fn. The only way to type numbers is to use the top row only.

How does the touchpad feel?

You’ll probably hate it at first. It does take a few days to get used to. Once you do it’s not bad though. It’s not great, I admit, but it’s not awful either. This is one of those things where a design had to be made to accommodate the pint-sized nature of the netbook.

What’s the performance like?

Note before continuing: The 11v is reported to have much better performance as it has a next-gen CPU in it.

The easiest way to describe the performance of a 10v is that it is about the same running speed as a upper-mid-grade laptop made 5 years ago.

Some of you may read that and say, “Bleah! That’s terrible!”

Not really. When you take away the high-powered/high-graphic apps, the 10v can basically run anything you put on it, and do so in a way where you’re not sitting around waiting for something to happen.

The OpenOffice suite for example is a chunky set of apps, but runs easily on the 10v.

I have no issues with the 10v choking and I don’t believe anybody else would.

How long does the 6 cell 56WHr battery last?

With the screen dimmed and wi-fi off, 6 hours. And no, not “about” 6 hours. I’m talking 6 hours or more.

With the screen brightness up and wi-fi on, 5 to 5.5 hours. I can confirm this as I have put the unit thru its paces.

This beats the ever-loving crap out of any standard-sized laptop. Like I said, the battery is the most important part of a netbook, no question.

The video below shows what the 6 cell battery looks like. It is significantly larger than the 3 cell, but not anything that would make you run for the hills.

Does it feel like a toy?

Some netbooks do feel like toys, I won’t deny that. But the 10v doesn’t. The overall construction is solid and it doesn’t feel like a child’s plaything. When opening the screen there are no creaks or squeaks. When typing the keyboard doesn’t feel cheap. All the ports have a nice snug fit when anything is plugged into them.

How loud is it?

The 10v is silent when running. So silent you’d think something is wrong with it. Whenever I turn it on I have to purposely look at the power light just to make sure I turned it on because I’m so used to hearing fan noise from older laptops I’ve used.

How is the audio speaker?

Terrible. Sounds chintzy. A compromise of the small design. Even at its loudest volume it’s still too quiet.

Fortunately for most things where you’d want to hear the audio (like YouTube videos or music), you just plug in headphones.

Part of the reason why the speaker sounds crappy is because I believe it’s under the keyboard, so the sound comes from the bottom of the netbook. It’s more or less the only place they could put the thing. Like I said, it’s a compromise in design because of the small size.

A video review

Below is my quick review. It touches on points I’ve mentioned above plus a few other things.

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Dell Inspiron Mini 10v Review (With Video)

A small tiled image is by far the best thing to use if you want a background image for your social profile, blog or web pages. Not only does it load very quickly, but also looks the same on all resolutions and with the right tile looks seamless.

But how do you create one of these? Where do you get ideas from?

That’s easy, use BgPatterns. It is an app that exists only in the browser and is super-easy to use. Many different types of tiles are available in all colors. You’ll have a perfect image for tiling in no time. See video below for details.

Also bear in mind creating tiled images works great for computer wallpaper as well, particularly on older computers with limited video display abilities. If the redraw speed on your video card is slow but you still want a nice wallpaper, a small tiled image is definitely the way to go.

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How To Create Background Patterns Easily For Web Pages

Luna can be changed to either Olive Green (equally disgusting) or Silver (the only which looks good out of the set for Luna).

Many people can’t stand Luna and switch to the “Windows Classic” theme. But wouldn’t it be great if there was a theme in between Luna and Windows Classic that feels “just right”? HmmXP is it. It’s got the perfect blend of form and function as far as an XP theme goes.

HmmXP works for Windows 2000 (will not work in 2000), Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. I guarantee you will like it.

The video below shows exactly how to get it installed and running. It only takes a few minutes and it’s easy.

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Installing HmmXP Custom Theme For Windows XP

In Windows XP and Vista, when you use the Windows Live Mail client, you can right-click the icon at the bottom so that it only appears as such when the app is minimized:

When using the Windows Live Messenger, by default it will also have a small icon:

However the problem is that these Windows Live applications do not do this by default in Windows 7. Instead they show as large icons to the left.

The way to get them to minimize to small taskbar icons is to set the compatibility mode to Windows Vista for each. This is easy, and once done they will act as they did in XP/Vista concerning how they look in the taskbar.

See video below for details.

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Windows Live Messenger/Mail As Small Icons In Windows 7

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Basic Internet Explorer 8 Customization