I recently came across a thread on a random forum where it called out to the members to post a screenshot of their desktop to show off their wallpaper graphics.

What was interesting wasn’t the graphics per sé but rather the screen resolution for most of the screen shots shown, which happened to be 1024×768. It showed up so much that a few commented on it saying something to the effect of, "Why are all you people using such low resolutions?"

Want to know the real kicker? These people posting screen shots were all in their late teens, 20s and 30s. This was not 40+ territory whatsoever.

So why is it that so many people still use 1024×768?

There’s actually a few good answers.

If you’re on a netbook, the vast majority of them have screens that are a native resolution of 1024×576 or 1024×600.

A teen may be using his parent’s computer where the parent prefers the resolution at something he or she can read, and that’s usually 1024×768.

The really interesting crowd are the twenty and thirty-somethings. I fall into this crowd because I’m 34. I wear eyeglasses, but my primary 20-inch monitor is 1680×1050 and the secondary 1280×1024. What’s the deal with 1024×768 in this age group?

The answer is something you probably didn’t think of: Games.

Games run much better and faster at lower resolutions. And if you keep your Windows resolution as 1024×768, when the switch to the game happens your icons don’t get all messed up and moved around. This is common in XP when you have your Windows resolution set different than your game resolution.

In addition, not all computer gamers run the newest blazing fast PC hardware. Many run decidedly old stuff and couldn’t care less about things like anisotropic filtering as long as the game plays smooth and fast. To get any advantage in speed and smoothness possible, the resolution is lowered on purpose even if the eyesight is just fine.

If you thought 1024×768 was only for the 40+ crowd, think again. There are plenty, and I mean plenty of younger users rockin’ the 1024 resolution for daily use.

What’s your res?

Write a comment and let people know. Include the resolution and your monitor’s physical size (ex: 17-inch, 19-inch, 20-inch, etc.)

Fervent Mac users are quick to say, "You get what you pay for" to justify the price of owning an Apple Macintosh computer or portable Macbook computer.

Laptops are outselling desktops like crazy right now and have been for some time – and this counts for Apple as well. Their desktop line, like all other computer manufacturers, have taken a huge hit sales-wise.

In the "get what you pay for" realm, with the Macbook line the one thing you don’t get for the money is screen size – and that matters. For many people that’s the make-or-break decision on whether to buy a laptop or not.

If you want anything over a 13-inch screen on a new Macbook, it will cost you over $1000, period.

Microsoft has capitalized on this:

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;from=msnvideo" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

BUT… and this is a big BUT…

A 17-inch screen on a laptop is just too frickin’ big for most people. Yes, the display is nice, but it’s when carrying it around that it proves to be quite cumbersome.

The be-all/end-all perfect laptop screen sizes are 14-inch normal aspect and 15-inch widescreen. There has not been a size before or since that matches up for more people’s eyes better. It’s also more portable and lighter.

Those laptops can be had for under $400 new.

That’s less than half the price of a 13-inch Macbook. Now that’s a deal.

For the Mac fans that would say, "I don’t care, it’s still got crappy Windows on it", shaddup. It’s $600 less, the screen is a full two inches larger and if I don’t feel like using Windows I can put Ubuntu on it.

The best line from the commercial above is, "I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person."

In today’s economy, nobody wants to be "cool". If to be "cool" you must shell out $1000 for a Macbook with a 13-inch screen while other makes are larger and less than half the price, you can take your "cool" and shove it.

A common issue many have when installing Ubuntu in Virtualbox is that the default virtual resolution is limited to a maxium of 800×600. By installing the Guest Additions that come with Virtualbox, you can easily get any screen res you want. See video for details.

THIS VIDEO IS AVAILABLE IN HD RESOLUTION. Click here to go to the YouTube page and click the “HD” link in the video player.

From the Engineering Windows 7 blog from the post Engineering the Windows 7 Boot Animation:

From a design perspective, we know that the visual presentation of a feature plays a key role in the user’s perception of performance and quality.  Our objective was to make Windows boot beautiful and was inspired by our Windows 7 personality of light and energy; and the way these forms reveal themselves in nature became our design palette.

What does this mean? It means it’s spruced up a bit.

Here’s the Vista boot screen:

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:76ad5217-d5f5-482a-85c1-2c84e14e178d&amp;showPlaylist=true" target="_new" title="Windows Vista boot animation">Video: Windows Vista boot animation</a>

And now the potential Windows 7 boot screen (no sound as of yet):

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:6b58ad0b-c45e-425e-b2f9-4bb2953f9420&amp;showPlaylist=true" target="_new" title="Windows 7 boot animation">Video: Windows 7 boot animation</a>

To note, the blog article specifically states that the Win7 boot anim is absolutely not the same ol’ 640×480 schtick that’s present in Vista. It will be 32 bpp along with better resolution and optimized performance code.

This is just a glimpse into the fact that Microsoft is taking the user experience very seriously, even when you first start your computer.

Said honestly, this does look better than Apple’s Mac OS X boot screen which is nothing but a plain Apple logo on white background. While that may not be a big deal for most people, bear in mind that Apple puts a very large effort into design and style. To have Microsoft actually have something that looks better than Apple is rare. The current revision of the Win7 boot screen as seen above makes OS X’s look old and obsolete.

ZoomIt v3.01 by Sysinternals will allow you roughly the same screen-zoom capabilities that you have in a Linux desktop with 3D effects enabled (Compiz) or Mac OS X. It’s a nice small utility (only 129k before install!) and works in both XP and Vista.

If you use your computer screen on a live webcast or make presentations to people often using your computer, this is a must-have utility and you’ll make very good use out of it.

And yes, it’s free.

To those wondering if it has the same "smoothness" as Linux or OS X does, not quite. But it’s close and it works well.

Screencasting is when you record your computer’s screen as a video. There are several apps that do the job such as Camstudio (free) and Camtasia Studio (paid), but the problem is that you have to install software, set options up, record a few screencasts before you get the settings right, etc.

Screencast-O-Matic is as easy as screencasts get. Just go to the web site, let it install it’s Java app via the browser (that’s how it works) and away you go. The end result is a MOV file you can upload direct to any video sharing service you like such as YouTube or Vimeo.

And by the way, did I mention it will also record your voice with the screencast if you have a mic attached to your computer? Yes, it does.

See video below for details.

Via Sarah in Tampa I’ve seen my first screen shots of Windows 7 in action.

The best way to describe the images is that "it’s all in the details", as they say.

These images are exactly what I hoped Windows 7 would be – simple and elegant. I wasn’t looking for "innovative" (that term has been used so much it’s completely lost its meaning when applied to OSes these days). I wasn’t looking for "wow". I wasn’t looking for "cool". What I was looking for is something usable, streamlined and functional.

(The full set of images are at LLarsen’s Flickr set – click that link to see them all)

This is obviously not a large departure from Windows Vista, but Microsoft is getting on the right track with this – and it shows in the interface.

I can say with certainty that yes, this will be the Windows that will make me ditch XP. Windows 7 – at least in appearance – has everything buttoned up proper, the way it should be.

As a long-time Windows user I’ve seen a few BSODs in my day. The version of Windows I had the most BSODs with was Windows 3.10. Not 3.11. Not 3.11 WFWG. Just plain ol’ 3.1. I never really had BSOD trouble with Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 or XP unless I had a hardware failure (usually right before the hard drive was about to go FUBAR on me).

There is actually a Microsoft TechNet article called Demystifying the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ that does truly help in making sense of that blue screen, should you get one.

Some of the BSOD messages I’ve received have been:

INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

This simply means Windows can’t read the hard disk correctly. I’ve encountered this when an older hard drive develops a few bad sectors. It doesn’t mean you have to throw the hard drive out. You can perform a regular (meaning not "quick") format which will mark those bad sectors, making the drive hopefully usable again.

NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM

In my experience this usually happens when your hard disk just has too much stuff on it and the data corrupts easily. For example, if you have a 120GB hard drive and 118GB is in use, you might get an NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM error until you free up some space, DEFRAG it (and run a CCleaner too just for safe measure).

Poorly programmed or too-old driver

In extremely rare instances I’ll download a driver and Windows doesn’t "agree" with it too well usually because it’s too old. For example, if I install a brand new nVidia video card but then use the drivers meant for a GeForce 6 (several generations ago), yeah, you most likely will get a BSOD out of this – and will be listed as such.

Solution: Always use current drivers. Head into "Safe Mode", kill the driver, reboot normally, install the newer version and this fixes driver-specific BSODs 99% of the time.

~ ~ ~

The TechNet article has a ton of info on how to read BSODs and understand what one is trying to tell you. So if your Windows installation happens to be "going blue" a lot, that article will certainly help.

For those with multi-monitor setups running Windows XP, you’ve probably run into the situation where whenever you launch a specific application it launches on the "wrong monitor". Sure, a reboot is a quick fix for this but you obviously don’t want to do this every time you want program windows to appear in their proper places.

Saving your last known window position is easy in XP if you do the following.

1. Launch the app. Yes, it will go to the "wrong monitor" as usual, but that’s okay.

2. Put the program into a "windowed" state (meaning not maximized).

3. Drag the window to the monitor where you want it to appear when launched.

4. Hold SHIFT and click the close button at the top right.

5. Re-launch the app. It should appear on the "correct" monitor this time.

Holding SHIFT and clicking the close button saves the window position of the app you just closed.

Why does this happen?

Here’s an example situation of what makes an app always launch on the "wrong monitor":

1. You launch an app and drag it to monitor 2.
2. You then launch a full-screen game that changes the resolution of both monitors.

When you launch that game, Windows resets all the current window positions to suit. If you have an app on monitor 2, Windows deems "Okay, this is where this app is supposed to be" and will re-launch it there each time you close and restart it until next boot.

To avoid this situation:

Minimize your open application windows before launching a full-screen game that changes resolution, or purposely run your game in the native resolution for monitor 1 (if the resolution isn’t reset, the window positions aren’t reset either).